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PHANTOM 


PHANTOM 

A  NOVEL 

BY 

GERHART  HAUPTMANN 

TRANSLATED  BY 

BAYARD  QUINCY  MORGAN 


NEW  YORK    B.  W.  HUEBSCH,  Inc.    mcmxxii 


COPYRIGHT,      1922.      BY 
B.       W.       HUEBSCH,      INC. 


PRINTED 


V,    S.    A. 


< 


PHANTOM 


My  wife  has  furnished  for  me  the  tiny  corner- 
room  in  the  front,  and  I  am  now  sitting  in  it. 
Across  the  way  the  village  brook  murmurs  un- 
der ash  and  willow.  Below  me  I  hear  the  tin- 
kling bell  of  the  little  shop  which  my  wife  tends 
It  does  well  and  supplies  our  modest  demands 
completely. 

But  I  shall  have  to  undertake  something  be- 
sides. First,  I  have  time  to  spare,  and  then  I 
have  spiritual  cravings.  Otherwise  I  am  quite 
content  and  feel  as  happy  as  a  king. 

I  smoke  a  pipe.  That  costs  me  virtually  noth- 
ing, for  we  have  cheap  tobacco  in  the  shop. 
Smoking  stimulates  the  fancy.  It  also  quiets. 
I  get  by  it,  for  example,  the  opportunity  to  feel 
a  state  of  agreeable  leisure  and  at  the  same  time 
to  set  down  my   thoughts   in  writing.     "Why 

[1] 


335'1£2 


don't  you  write,"  says  my  wife,  "perhaps  it  may 
turn  out  to  be  a  book,  you  know." 

I  just  simply  write  down  everything  that 
passes  through  my  mind. 

And  if  I  should  succeed  in  making  a  book,  why 
shouldn't  I  be  able  to  write  a  second,  a  third? 
Then  I  should  be  an  author.  In  the  most  nat- 
ural way  I  should  then  have  found  my  desired 
avocation. 

This  house,  which  my  father-in-law  bought 
six  months  ago,  together  with  the  shop,  did  once 
belong  to  the  widow  of  such  a  person.  Her 
name  was  Mrs.  Wander.  Wander  was  a  school- 
master who  had  had  to  give  up  his  position  on 
account  of  certain  views.  After  long  wander- 
ings he  found  this  asylum,  like  me,  and  had  a 
livelihood  in  it.  His  life-work,  which  he  may 
have  begun  and  completed  in  this  very  room,  is 
a  German  dictionary  of  proverbs  in  five  volumes. 


[2] 


II 

I  AM  unknown  here  so  far.  My  wife  and  her 
father  picked  out  this  little  village  in  the  Hirsch- 
berg Valley,  because  they  did  not  wish  people 
to  have  constant  occasion  to  talk  about  my  "aim- 
less journeys,"  ^  but  also  for  the  sake  of  with- 
drawing me  from  an  environment  which  at  every 
step  must  waken  recollections  in  me,  and  keep 
them  awake. 

Just  here  it  occurs  to  me:  am  I  not  on  the 
point  of  thwarting  their  intention*? 

Yes  and  no. 

If  I  reflect  here  upon  my  destiny,  seek  to  gain 
a  comprehensive  view  of  my  past,  and  endeavor 
to  set  down  veraciously  all  that  seems  memo- 
rable to  me,  it  is  for  one  thing  an  attempt  to  free 
myself  from  the  spell  of  my  recollections,  and 
something  very  different  from  unwillingly  fall- 
ing under  their  spell  once  more,  which  would 
probably  happen  in  Breslau. 

I  never  wish  to  see  that  place  again. 

Perhaps  a  man  would  no  longer  be  able  to 
live  after  such  experiences  as  mine,  if  all  past 

1  Translator's  note.    Title  of  a  popular  novel  by  Gerstäcker. 

[3] 


events  were  not  actually  unreal.  In  no  case  does 
the  past  any  longer  affect  us  with  the  power  of 
reality.  I  must  proceed  with  great  calmness,  pa- 
tience, and  care,  if  I  would  still  recall  to  my 
mind  the  details  of  my  great  experience.  The 
last  are  of  course  the  most  vivid,  whereas  all 
those  that  precede  my  entrance  into  prison  are 
much  less  clear,  although  much  more  important. 


t4] 


Ill 

I  SPENT  six  years,  four  months,  and  twenty-one 
days  in  prison.  That  is  a  hard  fact,  which  I 
had  rather  put  down  at  the  outset.  It  would  be 
more  than  disagreeable  to  me  to  have  fraudu- 
lently won  myself  readers  by  concealing  it,  if  a 
complete  book  should  some  day  actually  be  born 
of  the  faded  dream  of  my  life.  It  will  then 
remain  a  fact,  and  be  it  here  expressly  stated, 
that  the  writer  has  been  a  convict. 


[5] 


IV 

I  SHOULD  quite  certainly  not  be  writing  these 
lines,  indeed  quite  certainly  no  longer  be  living, 
but  for  my  present  wife  Marie,  nee  Stark. 
Stark  is  a  common  name.  But  it  is  natural  to 
say,  as  is  the  fact,  that  my  present  wife  is  not 
only  called  Stark  [i.e.  strong],  but  is  so,  al- 
though in  pure  externals  she  is  characterized  by 
a  gentle  and  amiable  nature.  Her  father  was  a 
bookbinder.  If  his  daughter  has  been  strong, 
she  has  also  had  in  him  and  at  all  times  a  strong 
support. 

My  father-in-law  is  eighty.  He  clerks  in  the 
shop  below.     He  is  an  admirable  man. 

We  have  here  in  the  village  a  strange  school- 
master :  a  baptized  Jew,  Dr.  Levine.  His  father 
was  a  banker  in  Berlin  and  very  wealthy.  They 
say  that  Dr.  Levine  renounced  the  greatest  part 
of  his  fortune  in  favor  of  his  brothers  and  sisters. 
He  was  state's  attorney,  and  was  to  be  promoted 
to  Attorney-General,  when  he  suddenly  resigned 
and  after  suitable  preparation  was  appointed 
here  as  teacher  in  the  grammar-school.  Only 
thus  could  he  appease  his  social  conscience,  as 

[6] 


he  puts  it.  As  a  favor  my  father-in-law  still 
occasionally  binds  a  book  for  Dr.  Levine. 

I  have  sometimes  told  Dr.  Levine  this  and 
that  about  my  past.  He  encourages  me  to  write 
it  down. 

He  has  furnished  a  comfortable  study  in  the 
gable  of  the  schoolhouse.  When  I  recently  re- 
turned to  him  some  bound  volumes,  he  detained 
me.  I  had  to  smoke  a  cigar  and  drink  a  cup  of 
coffee  with  him.  It  was  then  I  showed  him  the 
picture. 

My  wife  knows  nothing  of  the  picture. 

I  received  this  picture  from  Melitta. 

You  see,  when  my  relations  with  Melitta  were 
at  their  zenith,  I  had  told  her  in  a  confidential 
hour  of  my  weakness  for  Veronica  Harlan,  the 
daughter  of  the  hardware-merchant.  Melitta 
was  good-natured.  One  day  she  was  having  her 
picture  taken  and  saw  this  picture  in  the  pho- 
tographer's studio.  It  was  not  hard  to  persuade 
him  to  let  her  have  it,  as  she  found  the  child- 
face  in  the  picture  so  uncommonly  beautiful. 
Dr.  Levine  also  found  it  uncommonly  beautiful. 

It  is  beautiful,  truly,  but  thank  God  it  has 
no  more  power  over  me. 

[7] 


"No  more  power  over  me." 

This  assertion  must  be  modified. 

To-day  with  God's  aid  I  enjoy  perfect  health. 
This  health  I  attained  in  three  years  of  utter  soli- 
tude in  my  prison  cell,  and  subsequently,  when 
I  was  employed  in  the  prison  library  through 
the  kindness  of  the  chief  warden.  There  I  could 
also  complete  my  education. 

Since  I  am  now  enjoying  perfect  health,  the 
little  picture  has  no  more  power  over  me.  When 
the  original  of  this  picture  entered  into  her  power 
over  me  I  was  twenty-eight  years  old,  and,  be- 
cause sickly  from  childhood,  still  older  in  spirit. 
From  childfiood  I  have  been  sickly,  I  said;  I 
became  really  sick  about  in  my  twenty-second 
year.  I  coughed  much  and  for  several  years  the 
cough  always  left  blood  on  my  handkerchief. 
This  had  however  passed  when  my  spiritual  sick- 
ness began. 

They  say  that  the  so-called  "consumption," 
that  is  the  lung-disease,  intensifies  the  craving 
for  love.  But  I  can  perhaps  return  to  that  later. 
Anyway,  it  is  the  affair  of  medical  science  to  de- 

[8] 


termine  what  influence  the  body  has  upon  the 
soul» 

So  much  I  think  I  can  say,  that  when  the  spark 
fell  upon  my  soul,  a  vast  pile  of  fuel  had  col- 
lected in  both  soul  and  body. 

Now  what  sort  of  spark  was  it,  and  of  what 
origin  was  that  spark"?  Here  I  could  choose  be- 
tween having  it  consist  of  divine  or  devilish  fire, 
tracing  its  origin  from  heaven  or  hell.  Strictly 
speaking,  if  I  were  still  in  a  position  to  operate 
with  these  concepts,  I  should  have  no  choice  at 
all.  For  since  this  spark  gave  rise  to  a  truly 
hellish  conflagration,  a  Christian  could  never  ad- 
mit that  it  was  a  heavenly  spark.  And  so  indeed 
the  prison  chaplain,  the  Reverend  Mr.  Walkmil- 
ler,  called  it  a  hellish  spark,  and  thereupon  of 
course  found  it  very  easy  to  trace  all  the  terrible 
consequences  for  me  and  others  back  to  this  in- 
cendiarism of  Satan. 

Such  a  simplification  would  not  be  in  the  in- 
terest of  truth,  which  is  my  purpose. 

Just  now  I  have  once  more  scanned  attentively 
the  picture  of  the  thirteen-year-old  daughter  of 
the  hardware-dealer,  and  I  must  say  that  it  is 
of  captivating  charm.     "Virgin,  mother,  queen  I" 

[9] 


the  Master  ^  would  say.  A  sacred  image  in  it- 
self. It  would  not  be  strange  if  pilgrimages 
were  made  to  it  from  far  and  near. 

An  orthodox  Catholic  might  object  that  the 
guile  of  the  devil  may  have  occasionally  made 
use  even  of  the  unsuspecting  Virgin  Mother,  in 
order  to  lure  souls  to  destruction. 

So  when  I  said :  the  picture  has  no  more  power 
over  me,  I  meant  that  in  the  sense  of  its  misuse 
by  the  devil  it  has  no  more  power  over  me. 

1  Translator's  note:  i.  e.    Goethe,  see  Faust  II,  12102. 


[10] 


VI 


So  much  for  Satan;  to  trouble  him  again  will 
I  hope  be  unnecessary. 

I  was  simply  burned  to  ashes,  as  it  were,  by 
a  conflagration,  because  I  was  absolutely  defense- 
less, after  my  mole-like  existence,  before  the  in- 
rush of  the  divine  flame. 

But  in  so  far  as  this  picture  is  the  reflection 
of  the  divine  flame,  it  still  has  power  over  me, 
and  will  retain  it  until  my  death. 

I  first  saw  Veronica  Harlan  one  noon,  when  I, 
a  poor  municipal  clerk,  was  walking  home  as 
usual.  Before  the  city  hall  of  Breslau  stands 
the  whipping-post.  There  are  rings  on  it,  with 
which  the  child  was  playing.  It  was  the  twenty- 
eighth  of  May,  a  date  which  for  many  reasons, 
as  you  will  understand,  I  cannot  forget.  Even 
when  the  passers-by  began  to  notice  her,  the  gov- 
erness could  not  divert  the  interest  of  the  child 
from  the  whipping-post.  She  tried  repeatedly  to 
lure  away  from  the  steps  the  strikingly  beautiful 
creature  with  the  flying,  saffron-yellow  hair.  In 
vain.  I  only  know  that  my  hat  flew  from  my 
head — some  one  had  jostled  me — and  recall  how 

[11] 


the  child  burst  into  an  irresistibly  hearty  laugh 
at  it. 

Without  the  experience  of  that  moment,  I 
should  probably  be  to  this  day  without  reproach 
before  the  world,  and  sorrow  upon  sorrow  would 
have  been  spared  me.  But  there  is  a  proverb, 
to  be  sure  not  a  German  one,  in  the  collection 
of  the  excellent  Wander:  "Even  my  own  sor- 
row is  dearer  to  me  than  the  happiness  of  an- 
other." And  if  I  were  asked  whether  I  would 
rather  not  have  had  that  morning's  adventure, 
seemingly  so  harmless,  yet  so  pregnant  with  con- 
sequences, I  must  needs  reply: 

I  would  rather  yield  up  my  life  than  that  ex- 
perience. 


[12] 


VII 

This  confession,  to  my  former  judges,  would  be 
equivalent  to  the  expression  of  basest  obduracy, 
to  a  man  of  average  common  sense,  the  expression 
of  highest  folly.  If  I  live  long  enough  and 
abide  by  my  desire  and  present  ability,  untili  all 
has  been  said  that  can  make  a  frank  and  full 
confession  wholly  frank  and  full,  and  if  my 
judges  shall  one  day  read  it,  it  may  be  that  they 
will  change  their  minds.  They  will  perhaps  rec- 
ognize how  distorted,  how  incomplete,  how  false 
my  confession  in  the  protocols  really  is.  The 
man  of  average  common  sense,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  has  already  declared  me  foolish,  will  in  the 
end  regard  his  opinion  as  confirmed.  For  my 
part,  as  I  reflect  on  my  task,  reflect  superficially 
to  be  sure,  I  cannot  help  seeing  in  it  the  problem 
of  weaving  together  the  story  of  a  dunce,  a  fool, 
and  a  criminal. 

Of  course,  in  doing  this,  I  myself  hope  to  be 
able  to  rise  above  the  dunce,  the  fool,  and  the 
criminal — or  let  us  say,  to  cast  off  all  three. 


[13] 


VIII 

A  WORD  about  my  extraction. 

My  father  was  a  tax-collector,  and  had  under 
him  the  supervision  of  the  brandy-distilleries. 
In  his  duties  he  was  frequently  treated  to  liquor, 
and  had  eventually  become  a  pronounced  toper. 

As  he  was  seldom  at  home,  traveling  about  on 
business  and  dependent  on  hotels,  the  greatest 
part  of  his  income  was  squandered,  in  addition 
to  his  travel  allowance.  Had  he  not  had  a 
stroke  of  apoplexy  in  the  very  nick  of  time,  they 
would  probably  have  driven  him  out  of  office, 
and  mother  would  have  lost  her  pension.  She 
had  already  made  up  several  deficits  in  the  ac- 
counts, having  to  beg  the  necessary  sums  of  Aunt 
Schwab,  which  was  not  easy. 

My  mother  had  a  hard  life. 

Wholly  disappointed  by  my  father,  almost 
wholly  abandoned,  and  made  wholly  unhappy 
by  him,  she  found  solace  in  her  children,  as  is 
common  in  such  cases.  She  had  two  sons  and  a 
daughter.  I  was  the  oldest.  As  long  as  my 
brother  and  my  sister,  the  youngest  among  us, 
were  children,  things  went  well  enough.     When 

[14] 


they  had  passed  their  seventeenth  or  eighteenth 
year,  it  became  absolutely  clear  that  one  could 
not  rely  on  them  any  more.  That  was  at  the 
time  when  my  mother  was  already  in  the  fifth 
year  of  her  widowhood. 

I  had  always  been  on  especially  good  terms 
with  my  mother.  When  this  had  begun,  I  do 
not  know.  I  think  very  early.  It  was  already 
so  when  I  first  observed  that  my  father  could 
not  endure  me.  As  he  was  also  mostly  at  odds 
with  my  mother,  I  naturally  took  sides  with  her. 

I  cannot  say  when  I  became  her  avowed  fa- 
vorite. It  must  have  been  before  father's  death. 
Even  then  she  often  would  call  me  her  only  com- 
fort. Later,  when  I  had  become  a  solicitor's 
clerk  and  always  put  my  whole  pay  into  her 
hands  on  the  first  of  the  month,  I  would  not  in- 
frequently hear  her  say  that  I  was  her  only  sup- 
port. 

The  flat  into  which  we  moved  after  father's 
death  was  in  the  second  story  of  an  old-fashioned 
little  house  in  Pocket  Street.  We  kept  it  until 
the  catastrophe  came,  that  is  for  about  eight 
years.  It  was  very  small,  very  dark,  but  never- 
theless not  uncomfortable.     Such  quaint   little 

[15] 


city  houses,  with  their  small  windows  and  low- 
ceiled  rooms,  usually  have  great  charm.  I  had 
no  idea  but  that  I  and  my  mother  should  live 
in  those  rooms  till  the  end  of  our  days. 

I  assumed  in  the  little  household  the  position 
of  father,  of  head  of  the  family.  Considerably 
older  than  the  other  children,  I  was  an  authority 
to  them  for  that  reason  alone.  But  more  than 
this,  my  mother  took  every  occasion  to  affirm  my 
paternal  power  over  them  in  their  presence.  It 
fell  to  me  for  another  reason  too,  because  I  had 
long  been  the  sole  bread-winner.  When  my 
brother  and  my  sister  occasionally  earned  some- 
thing themselves,  they  never  turned  over  so  much 
as  a  red  cent  to  my  mother. 

This  paternal  authority  I  never  misused,  to  my 
knowledge. 

To  spare  my  lungs  and  larynx  I  had  accus- 
tomed myself  to  speak  in  a  low  voice.  It  became 
second  nature  with  me.  It  is  still  clear  in  my 
mind  how  at  the  trial  several  of  the  jurors  cried 
to  me,  "Louder,  Louder!"  This  restrained  man- 
ner of  speech  I  never  needed  to  accelerate  or  in- 
tensify in  intercourse  with  my  brother  and  sister, 
even  when  I  had  occasion  to  admonish  or  repri- 

[16] 


mand  them.  I  may  say  that  I  enjoyed  from 
them  esteem  mingled  with  admiration,  and  had 
a  more  unrestricted  authority  than  even  my 
father  had  ever  possessed. 

"You  ought  to  teach,  or  rather,  you  ought  to 
have  become  a  teacher,"  my  mother  would  say 
at  times,  when  she  noticed  how  I  would  take  the 
trouble  to  hear  my  brother  and  sister  recite  dates 
in  history,  Bible  verses,  and  the  like.  I  am 
surely  under  no  delusion  in  crediting  myself  with 
always  having  been  to  them  a  willing  and  pa- 
tient adviser,  helper,  and  teacher.  And  I  took 
real  pleasure^in  teaching. 

Once  when  my  mother  had  repeated  her  "You 
should  have  become  a  teacher,"  it  occurred  to  me 
to  wonder,  I  being  then  twenty-five,  whether  that 
were  not  still  possible.  The  idea  aroused  my  in- 
terest, nay  my  enthusiasm,  in  so  far  as  one  can 
call  enthusiasm  any  one  of  the  less  depressed 
moods  of  which  I  was  capable.  Within  a  short 
time  I  had  secured  sufficient  information,  used  for 
the  first  time  a  part  of  my  wages  to  purchase 
books,  and  begun  to  spend  every  free  hour  in  pre- 
paring myself  to  take  the  teacher's  examination 
for  secondary  schools. 

[•7] 


Until  then  I  had  lived  along  in  a  state  of 
natural  resignation,  without  thinking.  While  I 
was  studying  English,  French,  and  the  other  sub- 
jects, both  winter  and  summer  in  my  cosy  little 
room,  the  door  of  which  opened  on  a  wooden 
gallery  above  the  little  court,  I  was  for  the  first 
time  doing  something  which  originated  in  a 
genuine  initiative  of  my  own.  Hence  I  had  a 
special  gratification  in  it,  and  felt  my  self-con- 
fidence increasing. 

I  have  not  yet  mentioned  the  double  bone- 
fracture  which  I  had  had  the  misfortune  to  suffer 
as  a  child.  My  father  had  a  military  way  of 
dealing  with  me  which  was  hardly  very  appro- 
priate in  view  of  my  gentle  nature,  with  its 
tendency  to  subordination.  When  the  name  Lo- 
renz, for  so  I  was  named,  rang  through  the  house 
in  his  accents,  I  almost  always  lost  my  head  com- 
pletely. Hurrying  down  a  staircase  in  such  a 
state  of  mind,  I  slipped  and  broke  my  leg.  The 
bones  were  badly  set  by  a  quack,  so  that  the  af- 
fected leg  became  shorter.  In  order  to  repair 
the  damage  the  leg  was  once  more  forcibly 
broken  by  another  quack,  whereupon  it  ulti- 
mately became  still  shorter.     After  that  I  limped, 

[18] 


and  that  affected  my  way  of  life  not  a  little, 
more  especially  at  that  time.  For  obvious  rea- 
sons I  avoided  the  children's  games,  in  which  I 
had  so  far  taken  part  with  enthusiasm,  and  turned 
to  quiet  occupations,  preferably  indoors  and  al- 
ways where  there  was  nobody  present. 

I  think  it  was  not  until  my  trial  that  I  really 
learned  to  think  and  to  realize  the  blessing  of 
independent  thinking.  Yet  a  beginning  had  been 
made  when  I  formed  the  resolve  to  work  towards 
the  teaching  profession,  and  as  I  have  said,  an  in- 
dubitably increased  self-confidence  was  the  bene- 
ficial result  of  it. 


[19] 


IX 


Indeed  the  self -instruction  I  had  begun  was 
beneficial  to  me  in  every  respect,  and  I  think  back 
with  pleasure  on  the  hours  I  devoted  to  it.  (My 
wife  knows  that,  and  has  therefore  tried  to  make 
this  room  as  similar  as  possible  to  that  in  which 
I  used  to  pursue  my  studies.  The  old  tile-stove, 
against  which  I  had  shoved  up  my  little  study- 
table,  was  chocolate-brown.  Perhaps  at  the  ad- 
vice of  her  father  she  has  had  this  very  similar 
stove  set  up  for  me,  and  by  it  stands  the  little 
old  table  once  more.)  Courses  of  instruction  I 
procured  by  instalments.  One  by  one  I  also  pur- 
chased the  other  indispensable  text-books.  My 
mother  vacillated  the  while  between  anxiety  and 
approval.  Her  father  was  a  prosperous  citizen 
of  Breslau,  a  furrier  by  trade,  and  the  last  four 
years  before  his  death  he  had  even  been  in  the 
Council.  Now  to  be  sure  she  had  resigned  her- 
self in  every  respect,  but  still  it  did  flatter  her  self- 
esteem  to  see  in  me  no  longer  the  miserable  clerk 
of  a  lawyer,  but  the  future  schoolmaster.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  diminution  of  the  household 
money,  which  she  suffered  in  consequence  of  the 

[20] 


book-buying,  made  itself  painfully  felt.  Later, 
when  my  interest  in  literature  and  hence  also  for 
books  developed  beyond  the  range  of  teachers' 
courses,  and  I  began  to  buy  Reclam  ^  editions  and 
also  somewhat  more  expensive  editions  of  the 
classics,  I  sometimes  found  my  mother  in  tears 
and  had  much  difficulty  in  comforting  and  quiet- 
ing her.  To  be  sure  I  was  never  able  to  convince 
her  that  money  spent  for  books  not  absolutely  re- 
quired for  the  examination  was  not  thrown  away. 
Needless  to  say,  through  Schiller  and  Goethe 
my  intellectual  horizon  was  extended,  the  world 
of  my  ideas  infinitely  enriched.  But  my  then 
incipient  weakness  for  books,  so  much  bewailed  by 
my  mother,  had  another  advantage  for  me,  which 
cannot  be  overvalued:  without  it  I  should  never 
have  come  to  know  my  father-in-law  and  my 
present  wife,  and  I  think  I  have  already  stated 
that  in  that  case  I  should  no  longer  be  living. 

1  Translator's  note.  Philipp  Reclam  began  in  1867  the  pub- 
lication of  his  "Universal  Library,"  offering  the  best  of  the 
world's  literature  in  tiny  unbound  volumes  at  about  5  cents 
each. 


[21] 


X 


I  STILL  remember  just  how  startled  I  was  when 
Marie  Stark  stepped  into  my  room  one  day, 
bringing  me  the  Uhland  which  her  father  had 
just  bound.  She  is  just  my  age,  and  we  were 
then  twenty- four.  She  came  without  a  hat,  her 
dark  hair  simply  parted  in  the  middle;  she  had 
brown  eyes  and  wore  a  blue  shawl  over  her  should- 
ers. Our  position  in  life  had  a  certain  similarity, 
in  that  I  took  the  place  of  breadwinner  for 
my  mother  and  she  had  to  act  as  housekeeper 
for  her  father.  Her  appearance  was  somewhat 
womanly  even  at  that  time.  She  looked  like  a 
pretty  young  matron. 

I  was  startled,  because  I  had  at  that  time  a 
quite  inexplicable  fear  of  women.  Aside  from 
my  mother  and  sister,  and  not  forgetting  Aunt 
Schwab,  I  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  neither 
maid  nor  matron.  Of  course  I  had  occasionally 
exchanged  words  in  shops  with  proprietress  or 
sales-girl,  but  that  is  a  matter  which  alters  noth- 
ing in  the  above-mentioned  circumstance.  Even 
with  harlots  I  have  never  had  anything  to  do, 
[22] 


less  out  of  chastity  than  fear.  Besides,  that  was 
much  too  expensive  anyway. 

Marie  Stark  had  a  very  natural,  frank,  and  un- 
embarrassed manner.  I  was  myself  agreeably 
surprised  to  see  how  quickly  I  was  rid  of  my  own 
fear  and  constraint.  I  have  forgotten  what  may 
have  been  talked  about  at  this  first  visit  of  hers. 
At  any  rate,  she  soon  recognized  that  my  fore- 
most care  was  as  much  my  mother  as  hers  was 
her  father.  She  fairly  idolized  her  father,  as  I 
really  almost  idolized  my  mother. 

Such  were  the  conditions  under  which  we  met. 

We  also  rejoiced  at  many  another  common  in- 
terest, and  strangely  enough  at  the  fact  that 
neither  of  us  wished  to  marry,  but  that  we  felt 
ourselves  called  upon,  she  to  care  for  her  father,  I 
for  my  mother,  till  the  end  of  their  lives. 


[23] 


XI 

We  understood  each  other,  then,  and  had  the 
impression  that  we  had  found  each  other.  And 
this  finding  was  a  stroke  of  good  luck.  Two  iso- 
lated people,  alike  in  age,  had  met  and  were  en- 
joying together  the  happiness  of  natural  com- 
radeship. It  became  customary  for  us  to  discuss 
with  each  other  the  most  important  matters,  i.  e., 
whatever  seemed  important  to  us  in  the  care  both 
of  our  aged  charges  and  of  our  households.  In- 
formal calls  on  the  always  good-humored  old 
bookbinder  became  a  habit  with  me,  and  Marie 
too  visited  me  not  infrequently. 

That  mother  liked  to  see  Marie  Stark  come,  I 
doubt.  She  could  not  really  say  anything  against 
the  girl,  but  I  assume  that  she  saw  as  it  were 
a  rival  in  her,  that  is,  she  was  disquieted  by  the 
thought  that  Marie  might  take  me  from  her.  I 
know  that  her  plan  of  life  was  absolutely  based 
on  my  remaining  single. 

My  mother  clung  to  me  like  a  drowning  per- 
son. I  often  felt  this  with  almost  terrifying 
clearness.     She  was  distrustful  of  everybody  who 

[24] 


came  near  me  or  preferred  any  sort  of  claim  on 
me,  not  merely  of  Marie. 

The  clerk  Lorenz  Lubota — the  sonorous  name 
Lubota  is  my  just  heritage  from  my  father — this 
clerk,  then,  who  limped  as  if  he  had  a  club-foot, 
and  who,  when  he  saw  himself  in  the  mirror, 
could  never  get  an  approximately  satisfactory  im- 
pression of  himself,  was  at  that  time  not  far  from 
being  vain  of  himself  and  his  value.  Besides  his 
mother  and  Marie  Stark,  there  was  still  a  third 
woman.  Aunt  Schwab,  whom  I  have  already 
named  several  times,  who  idolized  him  as  a  model 
of  virtue. 


[25] 


XII 


Before  I  speak  of  Aunt  Schwab,  the  only  sister 
of  my  mother,  it  may  be  well  to  recall  that  I 
have  landed  in  a  quiet  haven.  Also  I  will  take 
a  few  puffs  at  my  pipe,  in  order  to  calm  myself 
in  every  respect.  It  can  do  no  harm  to  ascertain 
that  down  below,  the  little  shop-bell  tinkles 
again  and  again,  the  evidence  of  a  decent  and 
honest  livelihood.  I  grafted  roses  this  spring, 
painted  my  seven  pear-trees  and  fourteen  apple- 
trees  with  lime,  prepared  my  vegetable  garden, 
hung  up  starling-boxes,  even  put  two  bee-hives 
in  operation  .  .  .  good,  enough  of  that. 

Aunt  Schwab,  who  had  a  pawn-shop,  was 
hated  by  my  mother  for  several  reasons.  She 
had  increased  tenfold  the  property  inherited  from 
her  father,  whereas  the  fortune  of  my  mother  had 
been  used  up  in  her  marriage.  A  life  of  work 
and  care  had  made  my  mother  poor;  a  life  of 
enjoyment,  free  from  care  in  the  main,  had  made 
Aunt  Schwab  rich.  Mother  could  not  forgive 
her  that. 

But  mother  even  thought  herself  overreached 
by  her  sister  in  the  regulation  of  their  parents' 

[26] 


heritage.  In  her  direst  need  she  urgently  begged 
Aunt  Schwab  for  a  loan  in  order  to  save  her  hus- 
band from  prison,  and  when  the  latter  at  first  re- 
fused it,  she  came  out  with  this  conviction,  which 
naturally  resulted  in  an  embittered  wrangle. 
However,  this  once  Aunt  Schwab  gave  her  the 
money,  as  I  have  already  said. 

The  dislike  of  my  mother  for  my  aunt  had  been 
considerably  intensified  by  the  entire  transaction, 
as  also  by  the  debt,  which  she  obviously  could 
not  pay  off. 

My  aunt  passed  far  more  gentle  judgment  on 
my  mother,  than  my  mother  on  her.  "She  has 
brought  the  honest  name  of  Schwab,"  so  my 
mother  would  say,  "into  disgrace  and  shame  as  a 
usurious  witch.  When  one  considers  that  our 
father  was  in  the  city  council.  ..."  She  was 
surely  not  wrong,  my  good  mother,  in  viewing 
as  a  decline  the  development  of  a  councilor's 
daughter  into  a  pawn-broker.  But  she  called 
her  "usurious  witch"  and  other  worse  names, 
pointing  to  a  connection  with  elements  that  find 
a  home  in  thieves'  dens  and  houses  of  ill  fame. 

Aunt  Schwab's  opinion  of  me  and  preference 
for  me  resembled  my  mother's.     Doubtless  she 

[27] 


knew  what  the  love  of  man  signifies,  but  she  had 
never  in  her  life  got  beyond  one  or  two  engage- 
ments, and  for  the  rest  had  remained  unmarried. 
Her  business  she  had  always  conducted  alone,  in 
view  of  her  peculiar  talent  for  figures.  After 
passing  the  age  of  forty-five,  when  small  disabili- 
ties of  old  age  began  to  appear,  she  often  needed 
help,  and  it  was  only  natural  that  she  should  be- 
think herself  of  her  nephew,  whom  she  could 
quite  justly  regard  at  that  time  as  a  painfully 
honest  person. 

Now  the  circumstance  that  I  regularly  spent  an 
evening  twice  a  week  with  Aunt  Schwab,  in  order 
to  chat  with  her,  drink  a  cup  of  tea,  and  at  the 
same  time  look  over  her  books,  once  more  in- 
creased Mother's  dislike  of  aunt,  of  whom  she 
said  that  she  was  capping  the  climax  by  trying 
to  rob  her  of  her  own  blood.  But  she  was  on 
the  other  hand  shrewd  enough,  too,  not  to  op- 
pose any  obstacle  to  my  calls  on  the  supposed 
testatrix.  However,  it  was  not  hard  to  conceal 
her  jealousy  and  her  hatred  from  her  sister,  since 
they  had  not  laid  eyes  on  each  other  for  years. 


[28] 


XIII 

The  position  which  I  occupied  between  the 
hostile  or  at  least  estranged  sisters  is  of  decisive 
importance  in  that  chain  of  events  which  led  to 
the  dire  catastrophe  of  my  life.  I  saw  my  aunt 
with  the  eyes  of  my  mother  and  learned  to  hate 
and  despise  her.  I  saw  her  with  my  own  eyes 
and  learned  to  judge  her  most  leniently,  to  un- 
derstand her  somewhat,  but  not  to  love  and 
esteem  her.  My  mother  was  not  wrong  in  fear- 
ing that  by  becoming  involved  in  her  business 
circles  my  soul  might  come  to  harm. 

I  graft  roses  and  fruit-trees,  bisect  worms 
with  my  spade,  live  peaceably  with  my  wife  and 
my  father-in-law,  have  found  an  inner  harmony, 
a  settlement  and  a  conclusion,  and  am  certain 
of  ending  my  life  as  a  contemplator,  without 
further  engaging  in  a  "deed" — deeds  dull  the 
wits! — of  any  sort.  We  must  then  take  it  into 
the  bargain,  if  Aunt  Schwab  really  does  occasion- 
ally visit  me  in  my  dreams. 


[29] 


XIV 

I  HAVE  hitherto  mentioned  my  own  brother  and 
sister  only  in  passing.  They  are  outwardly  very 
different  from  me.  So  marked  is  the  difference 
between  us  that  not  even  a  so-called  family  re- 
semblance can  be  ascertained.  But  my  brother 
and  my  sister  are  also  outwardly  very  different. 
Both  are  unqualifiedly  beautiful,  yet  the  beauty 
of  my  brother  is  more  of  a  delicate  and  spiritual 
•nature,  whereas  the  charm  of  my  sister  consists 
in  a  certain  primitiveness  which  is  at  the  same 
time  rather  bizarre. 

She  has  the  head  of  a  youth.  As  she  wears 
her  hair  bobbed,  this  intensifies  the  masculine  im- 
pression she  makes.  She  resembles  the  head  of 
Praxiteles'  Hermes,  which  is  so  widely  dissem- 
inated as  a  plaster  cast.  Her  neck  is  very  sturdy, 
her  breast  broad,  but,  with  your  permission,  like- 
wise not  very  womanly.  She  is  slender  and  firm 
in  build.  Her  movements  are  large  and  free. 
That  her  hips  are  not  broad  is  self-evident,  after 
the  above.  Her  voice  is  deep,  her  speech  brus- 
que and  unconventional.  She  had  great  confi- 
dence in  me,  as  I  have  said,  whereas  my  influence 

[30] 


upon  her  was  slight.  From  her  fifteenth  year 
she  consistently  went  her  own  way,  which  again 
agreed  perfectly  with  her  self-willed,  mannish 
habits.  Her  name  was  Melanie,  but  it  did  not 
suit  her.  She  might  have  been  named  Konrad, 
Jungsiegfried,  or  the  like. 

My  brother  Hugo  attended  the  art-school.  My 
nature  was  much  too  steady-going,  my  spirit  much 
too  weighed  down,  to  possess  in  the  beginning  any 
appreciation  of  what  he  brought  home  with  him 
from  there.  The  world  of  artists,  of  painters 
and  sculptors,  remained  alien  to  me  at  that  time. 
I  never  looked  into  it,  although  an  unwearying 
enthusiasm  sought  to  open  it  for  me. 

I  had  indeed  already  heard  the  opinion  uttered 
that  he  who  did  not  believe  in  Jesus  Christ  was 
lost  both  here  and  yonder,  in  this  world  and  the 
next,  but  not,  as  my  brother  maintained,  that  it 
was  the  same  with  those  who  had  no  appreciation 
of  the  music  of  a  Beethoven,  the  lyrics  of  a  Höl- 
derlin, the  painting  of  a  Rembrandt,  or  the  plastic 
art  of  the  Greeks. 

I  was  not  envious  of  my  brother  because  he  was 
as  handsome  as  a  young  god  and  was  smiled  at 
by  all  the  young  girls  when  he  passed  by,  but 

[31] 


I  should  not  have  been  sorry  to  be  as  fortunate, 
and  when  he  spoke  of  the  power  of  beauty,  which 
one  must  feel  in  order  to  begin  to  live,  I  did  not 
indeed  understand  him  then,  but  his  words  gave 
me  food  for  thought,  as  the  saying  is.  Long  be- 
fore I  really  felt  the  power  of  beauty,  I  pondered 
on  it,  stimulated  by  him.  He  was  wont  to  say, 
using  the  words  of  Christ,  but  in  reference  to 
beauty:  "Unless  ye  be  born  again,  ye  cannot 
enter  into  the  kindom  of  heaven." 

And  so  I  have  once  more  arrived  at  Veronica 
Harlan  and  her  wonder-working  picture. 


[32] 


XV 

In  this  picture  and  still  more  in  its  original, 
whom  I  saw  by  accident  by  the  whipping-post 
before  the  city  hall  of  Breslau,  as  already  re- 
corded, the  power  of  beauty  dawned  upon  me.  It 
dawned  upon  me  in  a  way  and  manner  of  which 
my  dear  brother  Hugo,  the  painter,  hardly 
dreamed.  A  certain  Melitta,  I  said,  had  given  me 
the  picture.  Melitta  was  a  girl  whom  I  loved 
only  because  a  certain  resemblance  to  Veronica 
endowed  her  with  a  faint  reflection  of  Veronica's 
beauty,  so  that  in  her,  too,  the  terrible  power  of 
beauty  was  operative.  But  enough  of  Melitta,  I 
shall  not  anticipate. 

I  have  already  written,  "So  much  I  think  I 
can  say,  that  when  the  spark  fell  upon  my  soul, 
a  vast  pile  of  fuel  had  collected  in  both  soul 
and  body."  With  respect  to  that  spark  the  ques- 
tion has  been  asked :  divine  or  devilish?  Suffi- 
cient if  this  spark,  taken  by  and  large,  is  equiva- 
lent to  "power  of  beauty." 


[33] 


XVI 

It  was  on  the  28th  of  May  1900,  at  twelve 
o'clock  noon,  that  I  first  set  eyes  on  Veronica 
Harlan  and  that  my  destiny  thus  took  its  great 
turn,  which  might  never  again  be  reversed. 

I  was  just  coming  home  that  day,  and  I  shall 
never  forget  that  an  inconceivable  alteration  had 
taken  place  there,  without  there  being  in  fact 
the  slightest  change.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  one 
must  perforce  stifle  in  such  mole-runs  and  holes 
as  these  narrow  corridors  and  little  rooms,  al- 
though I  had  lived  in  them  for  many  years  with 
great  contentment.  The  ill  repair  of  the  floor 
in  my  room  struck  me,  the  spots  of  mould  on  the 
faded,  flowered  wall-paper,  the  great  cracks  in  the 
tile-stove,  the  ink-blots  on  the  table-top  and 
around  the  table,  the  cobwebs  in  the  corners,  the 
lime-twigs  black  with  dead  and  dying  flies,  and 
other  things  besides. 

My  condition  was  incomprehensible  and  pain- 
ful even  to  myself.  As  when  Bottom,  the  weaver, 
in  ''A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream>"  being  turned 
into  an  ass,  suddenly  has  a  craving  for  oats,  so 
I  seemed  to  have  the  fastidious  senses  of  a  royal 

[34] 


being,  whose  eyes  are  wont  to  gloat  upon  marble 
and  gold.  I  had  the  impression  of  a  positively 
insulting,  wholly  repellent  ugliness. 

It  hurt  me,  twice  and  thrice  over,  that  I  likewise 
got  this  impression  during  the  usual  noon  meals 
in  our  little  kitchen,  that  I  even  found  my  eyes 
and  ears  offended  by  the  appearance,  the  speech, 
and  the  behavior  of  my  own  dear  mother.  Fuzz 
adhered  to  her  venerable  grey  hair,  her  teeth 
were  neglected.  I  felt  that  she  dumped  my  food 
before  me  as  if  I  were  one  of  those  creatures 
that  eat  out  of  mangers  and  troughs.  In  short, 
whatever  she  did,  whatever  she  said,  although  it 
was  nothing  but  what  she  daily  said  and  did,  I 
found  myself  offended  and  tortured  by  every  de- 
tail. 


[35] 


XVII 

This  manner  of  seeing  and  feeling  was  new  to 
me,  and  wholly  perplexing.  It  extended  to  all 
the  daily  and  common  things  that  came  before 
my  eyes  in  and  out  of  the  house.  I  had  perceived 
something  that  had  now  entered  my  soul,  as  it 
were,  and  was  dwelling  in  it:  a  something,  a 
sainted  image  if  you  will,  whereby  the  lowly  and 
pitiful  hut  of  my  soul  was  transformed  into 
a  hallowed  cathedral.  But  this  cathedral  and 
this  image  were  now  in  the  wash  of  an  unspeak- 
ably base,  unspeakably  ugly,  everyday  world, 
which  I  had  till  now  really  not  seen  at  all. 

The  highly  surcharged  state  into  which  I  had 
fallen  gave  me  concern.  For  although  it  in- 
wardly renewed  and  exalted  me  in  an  undreamed- 
of manner,  yet  I  was  not  unlike  a  ship  that  has 
been  torn  loose  from  its  safe  anchorage.  At  the 
same  time,  my  new  way  of  seeing  people  and 
things  made  me  unhappy  in  itself.  I  knew  well 
that  I  had  previously  seen  men  and  things  with 
other  eyes  and  had  felt  myself  in  harmony  with 
them.  But  that  was  ended;  I  could  now  no 
longer  see  anything  with  those  lost  eyes,  or  re- 

[36] 


cover  that  lost  harmony.  Had  I  perhaps  fallen 
a  victim  to  some  severe  psychic  disease,  which  had 
as  it  were  poisoned  the  sight  of  my  eyes?  Was 
this  disease  perhaps  even  a  physical  one? 

How  shall  one  live  in  a  world  in  which  every- 
thing, everything  is  indifferent  or  nauseous  to 
him? 


[37] 

335423 


XVIII 

I  HAD  such  a  feeling,  as  I  can  clearly  recall, 
as  one  very  likely  has  after  the  bite  of  a  serpent, 
whose  poison  has  made  its  way  into  one's  body. 
It  circulates  in  the  blood,  do  what  one  will  to 
extract  it.  I  had  without  doubt  had  a  poison- 
ous bite  or  had  been  infected  by  the  poison  of 
some  disease.  One  need  not  die  of  it  by  any 
means;  but  I  could  feel  that  a  possibly  fatal 
illness  involving  unspeakable  suffering  would  in- 
fallibly result  from  it.  Should  one  submit  one- 
self to  it  with  patience,  await  the  possibly  infer- 
nal crisis  in  the  hope  of  eventual  healing,  which 
was  perhaps  worse  than  death? 

Some  days  after  the  occurrence  at  the  whip- 
ping-post, the  distraction  and  derangement  of  my 
spirit  was  so  great  that  several  times  I  barely  re- 
sisted the  violent  impulse  to  throw  myself  under 
a  passing  truck. 


[38] 


XIX 

Had  I  said  this  before  my  judges,  they  would 
probably  have  regarded  it  as  an  exaggeration  very 
transparent  in  its  intent.  This  intent  is  done 
away,  since  I  am  at  most  my  own  judge  now  and 
have  nothing  more  to  do  with  other  judges,  ex- 
cepting God.  But  to  pull  the  wool  over  the  eyes 
of  God  and  myself  can  not  possibly  be  my  intent. 

However,  I  do  not  say  that  in  my  extremity 
I  saw  only  this  one  expedient,  namely :  suicide.  I 
weighed  it  and  inclined  to  it  when  at  certain 
moments  the  thought  of  hopelessness  had  united, 
I  might  say  victoriously,  with  weariness  of  life. 
But  the  fuel  in  my  soul  which  the  spark  had 
kindled  into  a  fire  that  now  smouldered,  now 
merely  crackled,  now  lifted  tongues  of  flame,  but 
at  times  burst  into  a  roaring  blaze — that  dis- 
played countless  variegated  phenomena  which  I 
will  describe  as  well  as  may  be. 


[39] 


XX 

Even  on  the  very  day  when  I  had  first  seen 
little  Veronica  Harlan,  and,  on  arriving  at  home, 
was  forced  to  attest  the  alteration  of  my  visual 
power,  I  awaited  with  impatience  the  beginning 
of  my  duties.  The  mere  walk  to  the  office  as- 
suaged the  high-strung  condition  from  which  I 
was  suffering,  because  it  brought  me  closer  to  the 
spot  where  I  had  seen  the  child.  Incidentally, 
I  exchanged  at  once,  and  with  a  positiveness 
which  was  not  otherwise  in  keeping  with  my  re- 
tiring nature,  my  seat  in  the  municipal  office  for 
that  of  another  clerk,  a  seat  by  the  window,  from 
which  one  could  keep  the  whipping-post  in  view. 
On  one  of  these  days  my  office  chief  informed  me 
that  an  increase  in  salary  had  been  granted  me. 
This  was  a  recognition  of  my  competence  which 
coming  one  day  earlier,  would  have  transported 
me  into  a  delirium  of  happiness.  To-day  I  only 
half  listened.  Then  three  or  four  days  passed  be- 
fore I  informed  my  mother  of  the  fact,  which  I 
should  formerly  have  done,  most  likely,  in  the 
selfsame  hour. 

[40] 


Of  course  I  did  not  yet  know  the  girl's  name, 
nor  whose  daughter  she  was. 

I  felt  very  clearly  that  in  knowing  her  surname, 
but  especially  her  given  name,  I  should  possess 
an  inestimable  treasure,  a  part  of  her;  that  must 
be  balm  for  my  wounds,  refreshment  for  my 
torturing  sensations  of  hunger  and  thirst.  For 
as  I  now  saw  with  terrror,  I,  an  unassuming 
person  who  had  so  far  lacked  nothing,  one  might 
say,  that  made  for  a  comfortable  and  modest 
pursuance  of  my  existence,  began  to  feel  the 
want  of  the  most  needful  thing  of  all:  light 
for  my  eyes,  air  for  my  lungs,  music  for  my 
ears,  spring-water  and  bread.  All  this  could  only 
be  granted  me  graciously  by  the  favor  of  my  indis- 
pensable mediator.     My  state  was  pitiable. 

As  I  read  this  over,  it  sounds  high-flown  to  the 
last  degree.  Well,  I  will  by  no  means  maintain 
that  I  was  at  that  time  a  man  with  a  pulse-beat 
of  58  and  a  temperature  of  95  degrees.  Nor 
should  it  be  thought  that  I  had  not  tried  every- 
thing to  free  myself  from  the  state  of  dependence 
into  which  I  had  fallen.  To  the  burning  mania 
of  all  my  senses,  which  craved  satiety  and  rcvivi- 

[41] 


fication  in  the  girl's  presence,  I  opposed  ever  a- 
new  the  attempt  to  satisfy  their  morbid  appetites 
in  other  ways. 

In  the  first  days  I  weighed  every  possible  man- 
ner of  flight,  not  only  that  of  suicide.  I  resolved 
to  put  an  end  to  this  with  a  firm,  powerful  deci- 
sion of  my  will,  and  to  free  myself  from  the  sense- 
less power  of  this  imagination.  I  did  not  suc- 
ceed. Often  I  thought  I  had  succeeded,  when 
for  example  I  had  spent  whole  nights  cramming 
for  my  teacher's  examination,  with  redoubled 
effort  in  comparison  to  my  former  zeal.  But  ul- 
timately I  had  always  to  recognize  that  the  dis- 
ease had  progressed  unremittingly,  that  the  fever 
had  become  more  intense,  the  complication  more 
inextricable. 

And  so  the  other  possible  method  of  deliver- 
ance was  once  more  undertaken.  That  meant 
the  attempt  to  afford  these  senses,  which  had  now 
become  awakened  and  greedy,  at  least  partial  sat- 
isfaction. 

My  deliberations  were  about  like  this :  Try  to 
get  her  given  name  into  your  power.  You  will 
chew  upon  it  like  a  cud,  and  with  it  quench  your 
thirst  as  the  desert  wanderer,  if  you  like,  does 

[42] 


with  a  stone.  You  will  at  all  events  experience 
a  blissful  enjoyment  in  it,  feel  it  even  in  your  dy- 
ing, if  you  should  perhaps  die  of  thirst  after  all. 
Try  to  see  her,  if  only  from  a  distance.  Stare 
at  her  long  and  ever  anew,  until  she  has  radiated 
all  her  beams  upon  you,  as  it  were,  and  squandered 
them.  Then  she  will  have  become  cold  and  ray- 
less  and  can  burn  you  no  more.  Get  at  you  no 
more.  Or  else  her  rays  will  continue  to  stream 
out,  but  you  will  be  sated  and  oversated  and 
therefore  hardened  to  them.  Try  to  speak  with 
her  and  beg  her  to  take  her  destructive  witchery 
from  you.  She  must  be  able  to  do  so  since  she  is 
herself  the  witch.  Try  to  secure  a  picture,  a 
photograph  of  her,  and  carry  on  a  cult  of  myster- 
ies with  it  behind  locked  doors.  The  picture  can- 
not resist  your  furious  kisses,  and  you  can  perhaps 
cool  your  fires  for  ever.  Seek  a  confessor :  a  con-« 
fidant  to  whom  you  can  speak  openly  will  take  the 
frightful  tension  from  your  breast.  You  will 
pour  out  your  heart,  and  he  will  take  the  half 
of  your  burden  on  himself.  The  invisible  be- 
loved will  become  visible,  audible,  in  short,  pres- 
ent, in  your  spoken  words.  And  the  habit  of 
even  this  presence  will  perhaps  remove  the  deadly 

[43] 


pain  of  separation.  And  probably  dull  by  ha- 
bituation the  tormenting  need  of  having  the  be- 
loved object  present. 

Unfortunately  fear  had  so  driven  me  back  into 
my  own  soul  that  for  the  first  four  weeks  I  be- 
trayed my  condition  to  no  one  by  even  so  much 
as  a  hint.  But  because  I  thought  that  people 
might  detect  it  from  outward  appearance,  I  hesi- 
tated to  take  any  steps  whatever,  however  cau- 
tious, to  find  out  even  the  name  of  the  girl. 


[44] 


XXI 

About  a  fortnight  had  passed,  during  which 
my  condition  showed  no  improvement.  Like  a 
malignant  growth  which  if  not  cut  out  spreads 
and  spreads  and  finally  consumes  the  entire  body 
on  which  it  is  parasitic»  such  was  the  relation  be- 
tween the  terrible  and  lovely  vision  and  my  soul. 
The  actualities  about  me  really  no  longer  existed 
at  all.  Breslau  had  become  a  city  of  fantasy, 
perhaps  a  Vineta,^  in  which  I  was  in  search  of  a 
palace  of  blue  turquoise,  and  the  queen  of  the 
water-fairies  who  must  surely  live  there,  and  from 
which  I  only  rose  under  compulsion. 

Nobody  remarked  the  change  at  first,  as  I  did 
my  best  to  conceal  the  malady  that  was  couched 
within  me,  and  successfully  played  before  others 
the  part  of  my  former  self. 

1  Translator's  note.  A  once  famous  Wendish  port  on  the  Is- 
land of  Wollin  in  the  Baltic.  The  destruction  of  a  near-by 
stronghold  by  the  Northmen  (1098)  gave  rise  to  the  legend  that 
the  town  had  been  engulfed  by  the  sea.  Sunken  rocks  in  that 
vicinity  are  regarded   as  the  ruins  of  Vineta. 


[45] 


XXII 

Besides,  my  mother's  attention  was  at  that 
time  diverted  from  my  person  by  vexation  and 
anxiety  over  my  sister  Melanie,  which  she  felt 
more  keenly  than  I.  Mother  discovered  little  by 
little  all  sorts  of  things  in  her  drawers  and  clos- 
ets which  she  could  not  possibly  have  bought 
with  her  wages,  she  being  a  maker  of  flower- 
wreaths.  Long  suede  gloves,  open-work  silk 
stockings,  bronze-colored  shoes,  lace-trimmed 
shirts,  a  hat  with  an  ostrich-plume,  new  and 
stylish  dresses,  a  new  coat,  and  many  other  val- 
uables which  far  exceeded  the  capacity  of  her  mis- 
erable purse. 

I  had  paid  little  attention  to  the  transforma- 
tion in  my  sister,  and  if  I  had  had  my  mind  on 
things  as  of  old,  I  should  have  taken  her  seriously 
to  task.  As  it  was,  I  did  indeed  support  my 
mother,  who  feebly  appealed  to  Melanie's  con- 
science, and  tried  to  force  her  to  a  confession,  and 
perhaps  to  a  conversion,  but  with  a  tolerance  to- 
wards the  possible  straying  of  my  sister  which 
visibly  astonished  my  mother.     It  came  to  a  break 

[46] 


between  my  mother  and  Melanie,  who  declared 
that  she  was  of  age  and  dependent  neither  on  the 
home  nor  the  support  of  my  mother.  And  as 
all  this  in  a  certain  sense  was  really  true,  she  ran 
away  and  then  stayed  away,  after  she  had  once 
returned,  packed  her  things,  piled  them  up  in  a 
cab,  and  taken  them  with  her. 

Mother  spent  sleepless  nights.  She  said,  "I 
foresee  only  too  clearly  how  she  will  end.  She 
will  not  spare  her  old  mother  the  shame  of  seeing 
her  honest  name  disgraced,  and  will  at  the  same 
time  ruin  your  hard-earned  career  as  teacher.  For 
they  do  not  appoint  a  teacher  whose  sister  is 
in  the  underworld  of  the  same  city." 

Mother  did  not  dream,  thank  God,  how  little 
impression  that  apprehension  made  on  me  even 
then. 

Strangely  enough,  I  felt  myself  at  this  time,  so 
critical  for  me,  more  than  ever  drawn  to  Father 
Stark  and  his  daughter.  It  may  have  been  in 
consequence  of  the  need  of  confession  which  I 
felt,  as  already  mentioned.  Although  I  did  not 
satisfy  the  need  even  here,  and  though  I  gave 
neither  the  old  bookbinder  nor  his  daughter  any 

[47] 


hint  of  my  experience,  yet  in  their  presence  I 
felt  enveloped  by  hearts  that  loved  and  under- 
stood. 

The  old  man,  my  present  father-in-law — I 
hear  his  calm,  kindly  voice  in  the  shop  below — 
the  old  man  was  not  only  a  bookbinder,  but  he 
also  read  many  of  the  books  he  bound;  indeed 
he  himself  composed  some  little  stories  for  cal- 
endars. ^  Moreover,  people  came  to  him  when 
they  needed  a  bridal  or  obituary  poem,  or  the  like. 
In  the  composition  of  such  things  he  had  acquired 
a  certain  reputation. 

He  possesses  to  this  day  an  almost  unlimited 
quantity  of  them,  and  some  day  perhaps  an  at- 
tractive selection  of  them  can  be  made. 

I  wrote  my  first  poem  at  that  time  in  a  man- 
ner that  is  hardly  clear  to  myself.  I  discovered 
it,  as  it  were,  at  the  moment  when  I  had  written 
the  final  period.  I  shall  never  forget  the  joy 
that  was  depicted  in  the  face  of  the  old  book- 
binder when  he  had  read  through  this  poem  that  I 
had  brought  him,  and  now  learned  that  it  was 

1  Translator's  note.  Annual  publications  of  rather  higher 
type  than  the  Farmer's  Almanac,  but  serving  a  similar  pur- 
pose. 

[48] 


born  of  my  pen.     He  praised  it  then  in  the  strong- 
est terms. 

"Man,  man,  why  you're  a  great  poetic  genius. 
Here's  a  fellow  squatting  in  a  corner,  doing  a 
coolie's  work  just  to  buy  a  crust  of  bread,  and 
writing  things  that  are  worthy  of  a  Goethe  and 
a  Schiller."  In  this  vein  my  present  father-in- 
law  used  to  talk,  and  always  added,  "But  now 
it's  time  for  me  to  take  my  own  scrawls,  this 
wretched  waste  paper,  and  burn  it." 


[49] 


XXIII 

Upon  the  supreme  critical  day,  for  such  was 
the  twenty-eighth  of  May,  followed  another 
equally  critical  one,  which  as  the  sixteenth  of 
June,  1900,  deserves  to  be  set  down  indelibly  in 
the  book  of  my  life. 

The  morning  was  beautiful,  and  I  had  the  pre- 
sumption to  indulge  myself  during  the  lunch- 
period  in  a  couple  of  hot  Wieners,  which  I 
bought  at  the  entrance  to  the  Schweidnitz  Raths- 
keller» and  ate. 

At  this  moment  my  eyes  were  directed  to  the 
so-called  Golden  Cup  side  of  the  Breslau  Ring, 
about  in  the  region  of  the  large  well-known  hard- 
ware-store of  Emmo  Harlan,  whose  sign,  by  the 
way,  I  saw  continually  from  my  desk  in  the  office. 

Suddenly  I  experienced  the  utmost  conster- 
nation. It  could  not  possibly  be  an  illusion — no, 
what  I  clearly  saw  before  my  eyes  could  only 
be  the  little  princess  of  the  whipping-post. 

Oh,  how  I  had  stared  at  that  post  through  my 
window  from  early  till  late,  as  if  the  girl  must 
suddenly  issue  forth  from  it.  In  fancy  I  had 
again  and  again  wreathed  that  post  in  roses  from 

[5°] 


top  to  bottom.  I  had  again  and  again  circled 
about  the  post  like  a  fool,  without  stopping  for 
the  scoffing  of  the  passers-by. 

This  time  the  enchanting,  lovely  miracle  of 
beauty  was  riding  in  an  elegant  wicker  carriage 
drawn  by  two  tiny  dappled  ponies.  She  had  the 
reins  of  the  little  horses  in  her  hand  (behind  her 
was  a  little  lackey,  beside  her  sat  her  governess). 
She  was  wearing  a  picture-hat,  and  under  it  was 
once  more  the  glorious  flowing  hair  which  at  the 
very  first  glance  had  had  such  a  magically  in- 
fatuating effect  upon  me. 

If  I  picture  to  myself  in  reverse  order,  as  it 
were,  what  took  place  then,  some  little  exag- 
geration may  creep  in;  but  thereby  I  shall  after 
all  approximate  somewhat  the  state  into  which  I 
was  helplessly  thrown  on  that  day.  A  coach- 
man who  was  washing  an  elegant  pony-chaise, 
with  his  trousers  and  sleeves  rolled  up,  took  the 
whip  which  stood  in  the  socket  on  the  box  of 
that  same  chaise,  and  cracked  it  several  times 
loudly  before  my  face. 

Only  now  did  I  observe  where  I  was  standing. 
In  the  long  courtyard  of  Emmo  Harlan's  house, 
which  was  overcrowded  with  scrap-iron,  plough- 

[51] 


shares,  etc.,  and  on  which  the  windows  of  the 
salesrooms  opened. 

The  handsome  old-fashioned  building  was 
known  all  over  town  by  the  name  of  the  Harlan 
house. 

Now  it  struck  me  that  an  elegant  gentleman 
and  an  elegant  lady  had  appeared  in  the  win- 
dows of  the  second  story  and  had  motioned  and 
spoken  to  someone  in  the  yard. 

The  place  toward  which  their  signs  and  words 
had  been  directed  was  now  empty.  It  was  in 
front  of  a  little  porch,  like  a  church-portal,  built 
of  blocks  of  hewn  sandstone. 

While  they  were  motioning  and  speaking,  a 
small  wicker  carriage  stopped  before  the  porch, 
and  an  old  servant  lifted  out  of  it  a  childlike  girl 
whose  face,  of  the  most  delicate  pink,  breathed 
health,  youth,  and  happiness.  She  stroked  the 
ponies  and  let  them  take  sugar  from  her  little 
white-gloved  hands  before  she  disappeared  with 
her  governess  under  the  porch. 

I  was  staring  after  the  child  when  the  crack- 
ing whip-lash  whizzed  close  by  my  ear.  How- 
ever, something  else  must  have  happened :  for  why 
else  had  so  many  employees'  heads  crowded  into 

[52] 


the  windows  of  the  vaulted  salesrooms,  all  star- 
ing out  at  me? 

"What  do  you  want,  anyway?"  a  well-dressed 
young  man,  probably  a  clerk,  suddenly  asked 
me.  "Nothing,"  I  responded  somewhat  taken 
aback.  "Well,  but  then  why  were  you  running 
like  mad  after  the  young  mistress's  carriage?" 

This  second  question  I  answered,  to  my  knowl- 
edge, only  by  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders,  where- 
upon I  was  taken  on  each  side  by  the  arms,  and 
amid  general  laughter,  which  seemed  to  come 
from  everywhere,  I  was  led  by  two  coachmen  or 
porters,  not  at  all  brutally,  out  through  the  drive- 
way into  the  Ring,  where  they  left  me  standing 
in  the  stream  of  traffic. 

I  think  I  stood  there  a  long  time  before  I  be- 
gan to  move  my  feet. 


[53] 


XXIV 

That  morning,  that  whole  day  I  did  not  re- 
turn to  the  office,  although  I  had  an  urgent  piece 
of  work  to  finish.  Neither  did  I  go  home,  and 
I  think  that  for  the  very  first  time  since  she  was 
widowed  my  mother  had  to  wait  dinner  and  sup- 
per for  me  in  vain.  It  was  towards  nine  o'clock 
in  the  morning  when  my  mother  saw  me  again. 

All  that  time  I  had  walked  about  restlessly, 
without  eating  or  drinking,  for  an  immense  fear 
had  pervaded  me  when  I  finally  came  to  myself 
before  the  porch  of  that  patrician  house.  I 
recognized  that  here  was  something  which  had 
got  me  in  its  power  without  my  will,  indeed 
against  my  will,  and  had  commanded  me. 

But  if  this  was  so,  could  not  this  something,  this 
Daemon  which  was  possessing  me,  misuse  me  for 
still  worse  things?  It  was  this  fear  that  was 
calling  into  the  lists  all  my  healthy  powers  to 
fight  against  that  Daemon. 

I  shall  remain  as  cool  as  possible,  and  if  you 
like  be  a  little  superficial  again,  in  the  account 
of  my  restless  roving,  rather  than  perhaps  let  my 
spirit  be  once  more  clouded  by  its  confusion,  or 

[54] 


even  entangled  in  it.  First  I  walked  about  in  the 
streets  and  lanes  of  the  city,  until  I  reached  the 
Oder  somewhere  and  followed  its  banks  upstream 
out  of  the  town. 

Even  at  the  beginning  of  my  wanderings  my 
feeling  was  that  I  had  gone  astray  and  was  al- 
ready far,  far  away  from  the  familiar  and  peace- 
girt  spot  where  I  had  dwelt  in  security  before  the 
apparition  at  the  whipping-post  had  entered  my 
life.  There  is  a  dream  that  most  people  have 
probably  dreamed.  On  a  certain  day  and  at  a 
fixed  hour  you  must  be  at  such  and  such  a  place. 
Very  much  depends  on  your  being  punctual.  Un- 
punctuality,  and  still  more  your  utter  failure  to 
arrive,  involves  irreparable  and  painfully  severe 
material  and  spiritual  losses.  Never  again  will 
that  opportunity  return^  if  you  miss  it.  Now, 
however,  this  is  the  torturing  course  of  the  dream, 
that  you  cannot  possibly  overcome  the  incompre- 
hensibly numerous  hindrances,  in  order  to  reach 
your  destination  at  the  right  time :  you  lack  a  col- 
lar, a  shirt,  some  other  important  article  of  cloth- 
ing, and  when  you  have  found  one,  another  has 
disappeared.  If  you  have  finally  reached  the  sta- 
tion in  spite  of  everything,  then  you  have  boarded 

[55] 


the  wrong  train,  and  suffer  the  distress  of  travel- 
ing in  the  opposite  direction  and  withdrawing 
farther  and  farther  from  the  place  you  wish  to 
reach.  Finally  the  train  may  stop,  but  the  door 
of  your  compartment  will  not  open,  and  before 
you  can  get  off,  the  train  is  shunted  on  to  a  ferry, 
perhaps,  and  you  are  suddenly  in  mid-ocean  on  a 
trip  around  the  worM  from  which  you  can  only 
hope  to  return  after  years.  .  .  .  Such  roughly 
was  my  condition  at  the  beginning  and  during 
the  course  of  my  wandering.  It  became  more 
torturing  from  hour  to  hour. 


[56] 


XXV 

The  same  Daemon  that  had  misused  me  for 
an  involuntary  and  almost  unconscious  action 
could  not  but  be  that  which  was  now  preparing  all 
the  hindrances  that  prevented  a  return  to  my  old 
healthy  state,  taking  me  with  it  on  extensive  aim- 
less labyrinthine  paths,  and  against  which  I  set 
in  motion,  alas  in  vain,  all  my  good  angels. 

Every  thinking  person,  to  the  extent  of  his 
thinking,  is  a  dramatist.  And  as  I  had  fallen 
into  a  perplexed  and  tormented  state  of  worry, 
I  had  composed  in  my  mind's  eye — or  it  had  done 
itself — a  drama  of  which  I  was  on  the  one  hand 
a  spectator,  yet  also  became  involved  in  its  dia- 
logues. Of  course  the  Daemon  was  on  the  stage 
too.  And  his  procedure  was  so  diabolically  clever 
that  I,  in  the  most  vehement  colloquy  with  him, 
did  not  even  observe  that  it  was  his  claw  which 
had  meanwhile  caught  me  by  the  neck  and  was 
ceaselessly  thrusting  me  forward  with  smarting 
soles  and  burning  brain,  together  with  the  entire 
Thespian  cart  of  my  soul,  which  all  the  while 
was  engaged  in  producing  its  own  furious  tragic 
action. 

[57] 


It  was  the  Daemon,  it  was  my  mother  and 
Aunt  Schwab,  and  the  school-principal  Dr.  Wohl- 
feil, whom  I  had  seen  on  the  stage;  and  the  last 
three  were  engaged  in  desperate  battle  with  the 
Daemon.  This  Daemon  looked  like  me,  to  a  hair, 
only  that  he  was  dressed  in  the  most  foppish  fash- 
ion: he  wore  patent-leather  shoes  and  a  dia- 
mond stick-pin  in  his  necktie.  They  proved  to 
the  Daemon,  and  I  took  part  in  it,  that  by  the  il- 
lusion of  this  enchanting  little  lady  of  fashion  he 
had  planned  my  destruction.  My  honesty,  my 
conscientiousness,  my  lack  of  pretension,  my  in- 
dustry, and  my  faithful  and  filial  love  had  been  a 
thorn  in  his  flesh;  what  he  was  trying  to  bring 
me  to  was  gluttony,  avarice,  and  pride.  He 
wanted  by  means  of  an  illusion  as  silly  as  it  was 
devilish  to  involve  me  in  folly,  madness,  and  pos- 
sibly inexpiable  guilt. 

Enough.  I  only  know  that  whoso  may  have 
met  me  on  this  journey,  whether  it  was  by  day 
or  by  night,  saw  a  gesticulating  person  who  talked 
audibly  to  himself,  and  who  must  be  assumed  to 
have  escaped  from  a  madhouse. 


[58] 


XXVI 

Mother  was  deeply  concerned  at  my  failure 
to  appear,  but  still  more  at  the  condition  in  which 
I 'finally  came  home.  She  too  must  have  feared 
the  worst  for  my  mental  condition.  Indeed,  I 
myself  thought  with  horror  of  a  possible  death 
in  the  madhouse.  My  fear  of  it  was  so  great 
that  when  mother  wanted  to  fetch  a  physician  I 
roundly  declared  that  if  a  physician  should  en- 
ter our  apartment,  I  would  jump  out  of  the  win- 
dow. 

I  slept  till  the  evening  of  the  following  day, 
ate  something  that  mother  brought  to  my  bed- 
side, and  again  slept  through  until  the  next  morn- 
ing. When  I  awoke,  I  was  strengthened  and 
quieted. 

Mother  had  been  at  the  office  herself  and  had 
adequately  explained  my  absence  as  due  to  a  sud-» 
den  attack  of  illness,  so  that  for  this  once  I  had 
no  disadvantage  from  it. 


[59] 


XXVII 

Now  there  came  weeks  in  which  I  was  almost 
my  old  self  again.  So  the  crisis  must  after  all 
have  resulted  in  a  success  for  my  side.  I  pur- 
posely avoided  thinking  back  over  it.  I  pretended 
to  myself  that  I  had  not  seen  the  apparition  at 
the  whipping-post  at  all,  but  had  only  read  about 
it  in  a  book,  and  that  it  was  about  the  same  with 
the  painful  incident  in  the  yard  of  the  patrician 
house  on  the  Ring.  My  present  wife,  then  Ma- 
rie Stark,  learned  of  my  mysterious  crisis  at  that 
time  from  my  mother,  as  she  has  recently  told 
me.  But  both  women,  with  a  correct  instinct, 
agreed  to  make  no  further  allusions  to  the  inci- 
dent, not  to  remind  me  of  it  in  any  way.  The 
success  which  my  poem  had  had  with  the  old 
master-bookbinder  now  encouraged  me  to  further 
poetic  ventures,  and  one  day  a  whole  bundle  of 
poems  was  sent  off  by  Stark  to  an  illustrated 
weekly  in  Munich. 

What  the  poems  contained  and  what  value 
they  possessed  is  indifferent  here.  One  verse  read 
for  example:     "Is't  thou,  O  Muse,  that  takes  me 

[60] 


to  her  service,  and  like  the  Sphinx  with  talons 
tears  the  lyric  from  my  breast*?"  That  may 
sound  silly,  but  it  was  truly  felt.  Well,  as  I 
have  said,  the  essence  and  worth  of  the  poems  may 
be  debated  before  another  forum.  More  import- 
ant to  me  for  the  moment  is  what  took  place  with- 
in me  after  Stark  had  sent  them  off  to  the  Munich 
newspaper. 

The  strange  action  to  which  I  was  led  thereby 
might  have  convinced  me  even  then  that  I  had 
by  no  means  become  my  old  self  again. 

A  glowing  ambition,  such  as  had  been  wholly 
remote  from  me  hitherto,  caused  a  swarm  of  pro- 
vincial illusions,  like  mushrooms  after  a  mild 
rain,  to  shoot  up  in  me.  Poems  were  to  me  a 
divine  gift,  and  I  did  not  doubt  that  since  I  had 
condescended  to  hand  them  over  for  compensa- 
tion, this  compensation  must  be  a  royal  one. 
Also  I  assumed,  imperceptibly  losing  the  ground 
from  under  my  feet,  that  my  poetic  productions 
would  have  a  perfectly  immense  effect  and  that 
in  consequence  my  name  would  suddenly  be  men- 
tioned with  the  highest  admiration  "from  the 
Meuse  to  the  Memel,  from  the  Adige  to  the 

[61] 


Belt."  ^  To-day  it  is  wholly  inexplicable  to  me 
how  I  could  soar  to  such  chimerical  heights,  but 
I  yielded  to  these  chimeras  so  completely  that  long 
before  the  newspaper  had  answered  I  regarded 
myself  as  a  rich  and  honor-crowned  poet. 

Now  since  that  frightful  new  vision,  that  made 
everything  which  I  had  hitherto  accepted  with  in- 
difference appear  ugly  to  me,  had  not  yet  died 
out  again,  but  had  actually  directed  itself  to  my 
own  person  and  its  outward  appearance,  I  stepped 
one  day  in  an  exalted  mood  into  the  leading  cloth- 
ing-store in  Breslau,  and  actually  succeeded,  by 
posing  as  a  well-known  author,  in  getting  them  to 
note  my  address  and  let  me  walk  off  with  a  new, 
unpaid-for  suit  of  clothes  on  my  person. 

I  do  not  think  I  was  a  conscious  swindler  at 
that  time.  But  with  this  incomprehensible  act 
I  had  taken  the  first  step  on  the  fateful  way  that 
was  later  on  to  lead  me  into  prison. 

Rejected  with  thanks,  my  poems  very  soon 
came  back  to  Master  Stark,  who,  in  the  extremest 
state  of  moral  indignation,  thundered  out  by  the 
quarter-hour  his  rage  and  his  contempt  of  the  stu- 

1  Translator's    note.    A    familiar    couplet    from    the    national 
hymn,  "Deutschland,  Deutschland  über  Alles." 

[62] 


pid  scribbling  rabble,  but  who  could  not  alter  the 
fact.  If  I  assume  to-day  the  opposite  case,  even 
if  they  had  paid  for  my  patchwork  verse,  still 
I  could  not  have  paid  for  a  fourth  of  my  mad 
purchase  with  the  proceeds. 


[63] 


XXVIII 

I  MUST  now  come  to  Aunt  Schwab,  which  is  not 
possible  without  a  certain  effort.  In  my  domestic 
circle  the  name  is  never  uttered;  I  avoid  it  for 
my  own  sake,  Father  Stark  and  Marie  out  of  re- 
gard for  me.  After  all,  she  was  own  sister  to  my 
good  and  beloved  mother.  And  when  I  think 
how  she  met  her  end,  and  what  part  I  played  in 
the  chain  of  events  that  led  to  her*  death,  I  feel 
each  time  a  wound  in  my  own  flesh,  with  which  it 
is  possible  to  live,  strangely  enough,  in  spite  of 
its  being  incurable. 

The  quaint  little  house  she  lived  in  was  her 
property.  The  comer  house,  you  know,  between 
Ketzelohle  and  Heretic  Hill.  Her  little  rooms 
were  handsomely  furnished,  only  somewhat  over- 
crowded with  ancient  art-objects  which  she  bought 
and  sold,  or  had  kept  as  unredeemed  security. 
She  was  not  only  a  connoisseur  in  such  matters, 
but  even  had  such  a  liking  for  the  one  or  the 
other  object  that  with  all  her  fondness  for  money 
it  was  not  to  be  bought  of  her. 

To  spend  an  evening  with  Aimt  Schwab  was 
not  uninteresting,  both  on  her  own  account  and 

[64] 


because  of  the  people  you  could  see  going  in  and 
out  of  her  house.     One  could  make  studies  of 
human  nature  there,  and  she  herself  had  made 
them  copiously.     Aunt  Schwab  was  shrewd,  had 
experienced  and  seen  much,  and  was  perhaps  bet- 
ter posted  on  the  scandals  of  the  province,  from 
her  own  experience,  than  any  other  person  in 
town,  because  high  and  low  entrusted  her  from 
time  to  time  with  their  confidences.     For  the  best- 
known  names  of  the  nobility  she  evinced  not  the 
slightest  respect,  and  I  lost  mine  too  when  she 
would  draw  aside  from  this  or  that  old  family  the 
ostentatious  outward  draperies  they  affected.    My 
mother  was  a  simple  woman,  but  Aunt  Schwab 
had  a  mobile  mind  and  an  active  thirst  for  cul- 
ture.    She  went  to  concerts  and  theatre,  and  was 
well  posted  on  the  world  of  music  and  of  actors, 
and  even  on  politics. 

And  she  was  no  stranger  in  still  another  world, 
though  it  is  hard  to  determine  whether  she  her- 
self belonged  in  it  or  only  touched  the  fringe  of 
it  occasionally.  It  was  the  light-shunning  world 
of  the  crooks.  She  would  often  prove  to  me  that 
thievery  infested  all  classes.  She  would  show  me 
respected  men  in  officers'  uniforms,  of  every  mill- 

[65] 


tary  rank,  when  we  were  walking  the  streets  to° 
gether,  and  would  maintain  that  if  someone 
should  trumpet  out  only  the  tenth  part  of  what 
she  knew  about  them,  they  would  have  to  ex- 
change the  gleaming  coat  of  the  king  for  a  very 
different  uniform.  She  named  distinguished 
ladies  who  were  no  whit  less  clever  than  the  art- 
fullest  shop-lifters.  Some  who  were  married 
to  the  highest  personages,  mothers  of  well- 
reared  children,  had  the  greatest  skill  in 
causing  diamonds  to  disappear  unobtrusively 
in  their  suede  gloves,  in  their  mouths,  or 
elsewhere.  "I  much  prefer,"  aunt  would  often 
say,  "to  have  to  do  with  real  crooks  than  with 
folks  of  that  stamp,  who  will  not  admit  their 
rascality  in  the  least.  Robbers,  forgers,  embez- 
zlers of  trust-funds,  countesses  and  baronesses 
that  put  into  their  own  pockets  half  of  the  pro- 
ceeds from  the  sales  at  their  booths  in  charity- 
bazaars,  consider  themselves  none  the  less  first  and 
last  as  the  noblest  flower  of  the  nation,  and  stead- 
fastly feel  themselves  justified  in  looking  down 
contemptuously  upon  their  honest  and  decent  fel- 
lowmen."  Well,  who  knows  how  far  Aunt 
Schwab  was  right"?     I  think  she  knew  these  amat- 

[66] 


eur  crooks  no  less  thoroughly  than  the  profession- 
als. These  she  certainly  knew.  I  have  proofs 
of  that  which  are  written  as  it  were  with  blood 
and  iron  into  the  history  of  my  life. 

One  of  Aunt  Schwab's  friends  was  a  police 
commissioner.  She  declared  he  had  a  screw 
loose,  although  she  had  lived  on  very  intimate 
terms  with  him,  as  I  believe,  for  ten  years.  I  am 
convinced  that  he  had  helped  her  out  of  many  a 
hole.  Really,  my  aunt  and  probably  the  com- 
missioner also  belonged  in  a  certain  sense  in  the 
very  group  to  which  Aunt  Schwab  preferred  the 
real  crooks.  Convinced  without  doubt  of  their 
civic  righteousness,  they  nevertheless  profited  not 
infrequently  by  goods  that  had  been  criminally 
obtained. 

I  have  met  at  my  aunt's  house  private  detec- 
tives, matrimonial  agents,  inventors  of  all  sorts 
of  patent  articles,  bankrupt  characters  of  all 
sorts,  theological  candidates  who  had  turned  into 
procurers,  officers  who  had  degenerated  into  card- 
sharpers  and  been  convicted,  schoolmasters  who 
had  done  time  in  prison  on  account  of  moral 
derelictions,  and  others  besides.  I  have  met 
there  harlots  who  made  upon  me  the  impression 

[67] 


of  decent  women,  and  decent  women  and  daugh- 
ters of  good  middle-class  houses,  who  would  sell 
themselves  as  prostitutes  for  money  with  which 
to  pay  for  furs  or  a  ball-dress,  to  be  worn  at  a 
festival,  let  us  say,  given  by  the  elite  in  honor  of 
the  Crown  Prince,  perhaps  in  the  parliament 
building. 

Aunt  Schwab,  who  with  her  keen  understand- 
ing had  seen  through  the  glittering  shell  of  our 
social  conditions,  and  perceived  the  canker-worm 
at  the  heart  of  it,  had  thereby  arrived  at  a  some- 
times terrifying  open-mindedness.  In  almost  no 
respect  would  she  deign  to  recognize  accredited 
values  as  such.  On  the  other  hand,  she  could 
almost  read  off  a  man's  back  his  character  and 
his  debts. 

You  said  yourself,  my  good  aunt,  that  you  had 
scarcely  ever  in  your  life  been  deluded  in  this  re- 
spect. Then  I  must  have  been  your  only  delu- 
sion. At  once  your  first  and  last  one :  for  it  was 
a  delusion  with  a  fatal  issue  for  you. 

She,  whose  right  hand  did  not  trust  her  left, 
had  conceived  a  positively  criminal,  boundless 
confidence  in  me ;  such  a  foolish,  blind  confidence 
that  even  then  I  was  surprised  at  it  and  am 

[68] 


astonished  by  it  to  this  very  day.  How  could  I 
fall  so  low  as  to  reward  such  confidence  so  atro- 
ciously? 


[69] 


XXIX 

One  day  when  I  went  to  Aunt  Schwab's,  not 
looking  like  the  same  person — "clothes  make  the 
man  I"  ^ — in  the  suit  that  I  suppose  was  already 
the  fruit  of  a  swindle,  and  treated  her  to  the  same 
high-flown  expressions  about  wealth  and  poetic 
fame  that  I  had  used  on  the  clothes-dealer,  she 
was  still  so  wont  to  hear  from  me  only  the  sim- 
plest, purest  truth  that  she  swallowed  the  whole 
thing.  She  was  as  unsuspecting  as  every  one  else 
but  myself  of  the  poisonous  sting  that  was  buried 
in  me  and  that  would  not  be  festered  out  in  any 
wise.  She  had  not  even  learned  anything  of  the 
crisis  that  had  driven  me  about  without  ceasing 
for  almost  twenty-four  hours. 

Aunt  Schwab  was  my  well-wisher.  She  was 
interested  in  everything  whereby  my  advancement 
in  the  world  could  be  promoted.  And  as  she  had 
a  high  opinion  of  me,  as  already  noted,  my  emer- 
gence as  a  poetic  genius  seemed  to  confirm  her 
faith  in  me  in  an  admittedly  rather  surprising 
manner. 

1  Translator's  note.    Both  a  proverb  and  the  title  of  a  well- 
known  short  story  by  Gottfried  Keller. 

[70] 


I  told  her  that  a  certain  Dr.  Stark — I  was  sur- 
prised at  the  ease  with  which  I  made  a  Ph.  D. 
out  of  the  master-bookbinder  I — a  Dr.  Stark,  then, 
having  found  out  about  the  poems  which  I  had 
been  occasionally  tossing  off  for  years,  had  con- 
gratulated me  in  inimitable  terms  and  prophesied 
a  brilliant  future  for  me.  He  was  just  writing 
an  article  in  which  he  would  make  me  known  as 
the  newly  rising  star.  A  paper  in  Munich  would 
at  his  instance  print  some  of  my  poems  and  had 
sent  me  an  advance  instalment  of  500  marks.  I 
can  still  see  how  my  aunt's  eyes  grew  bigger  at 
these  bold  impostures.  Finally  I  detected  in  her 
a  frankly  joyful  surprise  which  almost  sobered 
me  for  a  moment.  But  the  fleeting  manifesta- 
tion of  my  conscience  was  washed  away  by  the 
stream  of  events.  My  aunt  accorded  my  com- 
munications an  importance  that  surprised  myself, 
and  immediately  fetched  a  bottle  of  wine  to  cele- 
brate the  occasion  with  me. 

Now  while  we  were  emptying  the  bottle  I  ob- 
served that  I  had  become  an  interesting  person- 
ality to  Aunt  Schwab,  and  that  she  was  now  sur- 
veying me  with  a  sort  of  timid  respect.     This 

[71] 


alteration  flattered  me  so  greatly  that  I,  seized 
by  a  sort  of  megalomania,  involved  myself  more 
deeply  in  my  web  of  lies  and  illusions. 

To  my  horror  I  recognized  that  Aunt  Schwab 
had  blindly  taken  on  faith  even  what  I  had  only 
meant,  from  my  point  of  view,  as  a  joke.  The 
service  of  destroying  my  tissue  of  falsehoods  by 
a  dry  jest,  such  as  she  had  at  command  on  oc- 
casion, she  seemed  for  this  time  wholly  unable  to 
render  me.  Instead  of  being  sobered,  I  found  my 
intoxication  only  increased  both  by  her  words  and 
the  unaccustomed  drink.  On  this  day  she  was 
of  a  positively  unlawful  credulity  that  was  fate- 
ful for  us  both. 

So  I  ventured  to  yield  to  the  temptation  of 
hinting  to  her  darkly  about  a  matrimonial  ven- 
ture which,  as  I  let  her  guess,  the  mysterious  Dr. 
Stark  had  urged  upon  me.  I  had  seen  the  girl, 
spoken  with  her  parents,  had  been  introduced  into 
the  wealthy  house  by  him.  Of  course  my  future 
bride  had  been  won  over  to  me  by  my  poems, 
as  she  had  given  me  to  understand  by  word  and 
sign.  I  finally  remarked  in  passing:  it  was  a 
pity  that  for  lack  of  adequate  means  I  was  still 

[72] 


condemned  to  an  all  too  modest,  all  too  cautious 
procedure. 

I  regarded  it  as  wholly  out  of  the  question  that 
this  woman,  her  wits  especially  sharpened  in  such 
matters  through  her  profession,  would  bite  at  so 
crude  a  bait.  But  she  swallowed  it  unquestion- 
ingly,  so  that  surprise  and  painful  terror  made  an 
icy  chill  run  down  my  back. 

On  that  day  I  went  from  my  aunt's  with  a 
thousand-mark  note  which  she  had  lent  me — a 
sum  that  made  me  dizzy.  Till  then  I  had  actu- 
ally never  even  held  such  a  note  in  my  hands. 


[73] 


XXX 

Every  step  in  life  is  fateful,  hence  I  had  rather 
not  apply  that  term  to  this  day,  and  especially  to 
that  step  and  that  second  which  took  me  out  of 
aunt's  house  into  the  street. 

There  brooded  over  the  city  one  of  those  burn- 
ing summer  nights  that  are  not  rare  in  Breslau. 

As  I  now  stepped  into  the  street,  I  heard  my 
name  called  by  a  man  who  was  going  into  my 
aunt's  house.  It  was  a  certain  Vigottschinsky,  a 
man  of  unfailingly  neat  dress  and  of  youthful  ap- 
pearance, whose  age  was  however  not  easy  to  de- 
termine. He  went  in  and  out  at  my  aunt's,  as  I 
knew,  and  was  well  liked  by  her,  doubtless  by 
reason  of  his  jolly  nature.  To  this  day  I  do 
not  know  the  nature  of  the  relation  between  them. 
Only  this  is  certain,  that  obscure  business  dealings 
played  a  part  in  it. 

Vigottschinsky  then,  for  that  was  the  man's 
name,  spoke  to  me  and  asked  whether  my  aunt 
were  at  home.  I  said  yes  and  expected  that  he 
would  go  right  up  to  see  her.  Instead  of  that  he 
went  on  to  ask,  as  I  was  proceeding,  whether  he 
might  walk  a  little  way  with  me. 

[74] 


It  is  not  at  all  clear  to  me  whether  he  had  cer- 
tain designs  upon  me  even  at  that  time. 

Vigottschinsky's  manner  was  engaging,  like 
that  of  all  the  Viennese.  I  must  not  be  surprised 
if  he  sought  to  make  my  closer  acquaintance. 
Old  Miss  Schwab  always  spoke  of  me  in  the 
highest  terms,  and  he  was  certain  that  no  other 
than  myself  would  be  the  rich  lady's  heir. 


[751 


XXXI 

These  words,  and  the  entire  meeting,  affected 
me  not  unpleasantly.  The  false  exaltation  in 
my  breast  had  not  yet  gone  stale,  and  the  process 
of  self-deception  and  self-befuddling  was  in  full 
swing.  It  suited  me  to  find  a  person  towards 
whom  I  could  go  on  playing  the  part  of  a  made 
man. 

Vigottschinsky  proposed  that  we  should  drink 
a  glass  of  beer  in  one  of  the  gardens  along  the 
promenade. 

So  there  we  sat  together  till  midnight,  and 
never  wearied  of  pouring  out  our  hearts  to  each 
other. 

I  have  never  had  any  friends,  and  the  pleasure, 
nay  the  happiness  of  such  an  exchange  of  confi- 
dences was  hitherto  unknown  to  me.  Moreover, 
Vigottschinsky  was  without  question  a  taking 
personality,  whose  advances  flattered  me. 

He  had  taken  extensive  journeys,  knew  the 
great  seaports  from  Hamburg  down  to  Naples, 
and  knew  Vienna,  Berlin,  London,  Paris,  and 
Rome.  I  shall  never  forget  how  fascinatingly  he 
could  talk. 

[76] 


All  told,  it  was  a  wonderful  summer  night  be- 
neath the  soft  rustle  of  the  chestnut-tree  tops  in 
the  illuminated  garden,  festively  enlivened  by 
gay  people,  with  the  lonesome  cries  of  the  swans 
floating  over  from  the  city  moat.  In  one  of  the 
other  gardens  near  by  a  band  was  playing,  and 
the  music  reached  our  ears  in  muffled  tones. 

Vigottschinsky  was  really  astonished  and  much 
interested  to  learn  of  my  literary  bent  and  my 
first  successes  as  a  poet,  which  I  probably  set 
forth  to  him  in  a  considerably  more  fantastic 
shape  than  to  my  aunt.  It  came  out  in  this 
connection  that  he  was  from  my  point  of  view  as- 
tonishingly well  read.  From  him  I  heard  for  the 
first  time  the  name  of  Dostoievsky,  which  from 
that  time  on  is  inseparable  from  my  destiny. 

In  this  night  the  fantastic  structure  which  I 
had  erected  above  and  around  me  underwent  a 
marked  consolidation. 

It  was  the  sweet  wound  in  my  soul,  the  elegant 
suit  I  had  on,  my  first  friend,  the  atmosphere  of 
self-deception  and  false  ostentation  in  which  I 
had  this  day  advanced  so  successfully  at  Aunt 
Schwab's,  it  was  my  fancied  poetic  glory  and  the 
faith  of  my  aunt,  the  faith  of  Vigottschinsky  in 

[77] 


it,  the  perfume  of  strange  lands  that  Vigottschin- 
sky  brought  with  him,  it  was  the  summer  night, 
the  wholly  unwonted  enveloping  flood  of  light 
and  festivity,  the  equally  unwonted  drink,  and 
by  no  means  least  of  all  the  thousand-mark-note 
in  my  pocket — it  was  all  this  together  that  com- 
pleted my  befogging  and  intoxication. 

It  is  inevitable  in  such  nocturnal  sessions  that 
sooner  or  later  the  conversation  will  turn  upon  the 
relations  of  the  sexes.  Of  course  this  is  probably 
the  favorite  topic  anyway.  But  in  a  Breslau 
beer-garden,  during  a  hot  summer  night,  it  might 
only  be  avoided  by  one  who  was  blind  and  a  deaf- 
mute  besides.  After  all,  it  is  here  that  the  world 
of  prostitutes  and  their  doubtful  hangers-on  min- 
gles with  the  populace,  and  you  see  the  flower  of 
the  city  daughters,  in  their  light-colored  summer 
dresses,  and  the  provocative  finery  and  display 
of  the  local  demi-monde,  mingling  in  a  motley 
throng. 

Of  course  Vigottschinsky  and  I  were  also  at- 
tentive to  this  throng  during  our  conversation. 
We  were  constantly  being  attracted  by  some  new 
apparition.  Vigottschinsky  did  not  dream  of 
the  divine  miracle  of  purity  and  loveliness  with 

[78] 


which  I  secretly  compared  each  one  of  these  ap- 
paritions, whereupon  I  hurled  them  down  into 
Hades. 

Vigottschinsky  was  informally  accosted  by  sev- 
eral magnificent  ladies.  But  he  seemed  not  to  be 
in  the  requisite  mood  and  to  prefer  my  company 
to  theirs.  And  they  on  their  part  seemed  to  know 
him  sufficiently  to  respect  his  whim. 

He  spoke  very  slightingly  of  them. 

Yet  by  his  own  account  he  must  have  lived 
the  most  licentious  life. 

His  accounts  were  of  a  shamelessness  that 
frightened  me.  Orgies  in  which  he  had  osten- 
sibly participated  in  houses  of  ill  fame  were 
connected  with  incidents  that  can-not  be  nar- 
rated, so  absolutely  bestial  and  animal  and  rut- 
tish. 

He  must  have  been  positively  a  frightful 
scourge  to  the  harlots  that  he  took  into  his 
service.  And  of  course  that  came  to  light  in  the 
court  proceedings.  That  is  also  revealed  in  his 
expenditure  of  the  plunder,  which  he  squandered 
in  a  few  wild  nights. 

I  never  saw  him  again  after  the  announcement 
of  the  sentence.     As  the  king  did  not  exercise  his 

[79] 


pardoning  power,  he  was  executed  on  a  Monday 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

Well,  I  certainly  cut  a  despicable  figure  before 
him  as  I  raved  about  an  unnamed  ideal  of  divine 
beauty  and  innocence,  the  original  of  which,  by 
the  way,  I  naturally  did  not  betray. 

I  cannot  say  that  he  showed  any  disdain  or 
scorn  in  face  of  my  eulogies.  Instead  he  sighed, 
as  I  remember  very  distinctly,  and  said  that  if  I 
had  the  faintest  hope  of  attaining  such  an  object 
of  my  love  I  should  be  the  most  fortunate  of  men. 
He  could  no  longer  count  on  such  bliss.  As  I 
view  things  today,  I  am  astonished  that  I  found 
it  possible,  in  the  presence  of  the  vile  and  deeply 
depraved  man  that  his  own  erotic  confessions, 
even  at  that  time,  unquestionably  made  him  ap- 
pear to  be,  to  lift  the  veil  from  a  sacred  secret 
even  as  far  as  I  did,  and  to  respond  to  his  bestial 
confessions  by  the  prostitution  of  my  spiritual 
shrine. 

Before  we  went,  I  changed  the  thousand-mark 
note.  What  I  had  eaten  I  could  easily  have 
paid  for  without  it.  But  I  could  not  resist  the 
itching  desire  to  put  on  airs  with  my  wealth. 

The  adventures  with  Aunt  Schwab  and  Vigott- 

[80] 


schinsky  took  place  before  Master  Stark  had  got 
my  poems  back.  This  failure,  which  he  ascribed 
to  the  initial  blindness  of  men  in  the  face  of 
everything  new  and  great,  was  unable  either  to 
eradicate  my  conceit  or  to  sober  me  in  any  way. 

I  felt  at  some  moments,  in  fact  mostly,  that 
something  within  me  must  be  out  of  plumb. 
Once  again  I  was  as  if  in  that  dream  where  you 
see  splendid  and  paradisean  landscapes,  go  stroll- 
ing among  them  with  rapture  and  astonishment, 
and  still  cannot  free  yourself  of  some  persist- 
ently gnawing  torment. 

My  good  mother  noticed  of  course,  as  she  told 
me  later,  a  marked  change  in  me.  I  had  become 
silent  towards  her.  I  no  longer  revealed  to  her, 
as  formerly,  all  the  stirrings  of  my  soul.  I  went 
out  without  saying  whither,  which  I  had  never 
done  before.  As  from  a  great  distance  I  would 
sometimes  see  her  eyes  fixed  on  me,  questioning, 
thoughtful,  distressed,  but  even  such  glances  had 
no  more  power  over  me. 

And  those  other  glances  had  no  power  over  me, 
that  Marie  Stark  directed  at  me  in  similar  spirit. 

An  instinct  told  me  that  I  must  give  her  and 
Master  Stark  no  inkling  of  the  scope  of  my  poetic 

[81] 


presumption,  and  still  less  of  the  imagined  mat- 
rimonial project.  They  saw  that  I  was  altered, 
that  I  dressed  foppishly  and  expensively,  and 
that  even  in  my  way  of  life  I  no  longer  wished 
to  be  the  retiring  Philistine  I  had  been.  I  told 
them  that  I  and  Aunt  Schwab  had  plans  that 
were  already  bringing  me  in  some  money,  but 
that  would  in  time  bring  me  a  fortune.  In  a 
similar  way  I  tried  to  make  plausible  to  my 
mother  the  new  lavishness  that  naturally  seemed 
strange  to  her. 

Even  at  that  time  Master  Stark  and  his 
daughter  revealed  that  trait  of  character  to  which 
I  owe  my  deliverance.  One  may  simply  desig- 
nate it  as  loyalty.  It  was  based  upon  an  affec- 
tion for  my  person  which  was  expressed  with 
equal  warmth  and  constancy  by  father  and  daugh- 
ter. It  was  motherly  in  the  daughter,  fatherly  in 
the  old  man,  and  in  both  it  was  with  a  degree  of 
feeling  that  bears  and  hopes  and  understands 
everything,  and  is  at  all  times  willing  to  share  any 
sorrow,  to  shoulder  any  burden,  to  make  any  sacri- 
fice. To  be  sure,  I  did  not  at  that  time  get  be- 
yond a  vague  feeling  of  the  treasure  that  I  pos- 
sessed in  these  two  people. 

[82] 


I  was  actually  suffering  already  from  an  ar- 
rogance that  made  me  see  in  them  creatures  who 
were  far  beneath  me,  to  whom  I  must  condescend- 
As  for  my  little  municipal  post,  I  very  soon 
found  that  too  beneath  my  dignity.  I  was  slack 
in  my  work  and  unpunctual  besides.  When  I 
got  a  wigging  one  day  on  this  account,  I  flared 
up  haughtily  and  declared  that  I  did  not  need 
to  wear  myself  out  for  starvation-wages  in  the 
service  of  a  city  that  was  rolling  in  wealth. 
That  meant  my  dismissal. 

Nevertheless  the  affair  was  finally  straightened 
out  by  my  office  chief,  who  was  a  well-wisher  of 
mine. 


[83] 


XXXII 

I  COME  now  once  more  to  the  principal  thing, 
to  the  idol  that  I  worshipped  and  that  had 
brought  my  character  and  my  life  to  derailment. 
I  still  kept  struggling  against  its  power,  but  with- 
out being  able  to  escape  from  its  grasp,  and  yet 
it  tyrannized  over  me. 

Every  evening  and  every  morning  I  would 
promenade  around  the  Ring  for  at  least  an  hour, 
back  and  forth  in  front  of  Emmo  Harlan's  house. 

I  further  attracted  attention  to  myself  by  buy- 
ing something  in  the  hardware-store  at  least  every 
other  day. 

Once  I  saw  the  proprietor  going  through  the 
store,  recognized  in  him  the  gentleman  whom  I 
had  seen  at  the  window,  and  made  him  a  deep 
bow. 

There  were  thirty  to  forty  salesmen  in  the 
room,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  they  were  laugh- 
ing at  me.     But  I  did  not  care. 

You  cannot  know,  I  thought  to  myself,  how 
terribly  serious  this  matter  is  for  me,  and  how  I 
am  directed  to  this  threshold  by  the  inexorable 
finger  of  God,  to  find  here  either  life  or  death. 

[84] 


Laugh!     I  laugh  no  less.     The  courage  to  live 
is  the  courage  to  die. 

Of  course  I  sought  in  every  possible  way  to 
meet  the  little  daughter.  I  knew  the  times  when 
she  drove  out,  and  would  always  make  a  deep 
bow  when  the  little  wicker  carriage  drove  past 
me.  The  powerful  instigation  of  my  Daemon 
to  run  after  it,  as  I  had  done  the  first  time,  I  was 
always  able  to  overcome. 

However,  he  betrayed  me  into  other  almost 
equally  foolish  acts. 

When  the  beautiful  child,  admired  and  stared 
at  by  everyone,  strolled  around  the  promenade 
with  her  governess  or  with  her  distinguished 
parents,  leading  a  white  greyhound  on  a  red  rib- 
bon, I  was  helplessly  impelled  to  meet  her  four 
or  five  times  and  to  perform  each  time  the  ridic- 
ulous ceremony  of  a  deeply  devcfted  salution. 
It  was  on  a  Sunday  that  I  was  observed  in  such 
a  repeated  salutation  by  Vigottschinsky,  who 
then  unexpectedly  hooked  his  arm  into  mine  from 
behind.  He  frankly  confessed  that  he  was  now 
up  to  my  dodges,  and  he  must  admit  that  there 
was  no  fault  to  find  with  my  taste. 

Since   my   secret   was  now   irretrievably  be- 

[85] 


trayed,  it  would  have  done  little  good  if  I  had 
denied  it.  So  I  resolved  to  be  frank,  now  that  I 
had  the  confessor  I  had  wanted,  and  to  reveal 
my  passion  to  its  full  extent. 

I  also  renewed  my  lying  assertion  that  I  had 
met  with  the  favor  of  the  beautiful  child,  and 
was  well  liked  by  her  parents.  Vigottschinsky 
hastened  to  take  his  oath  that  this  had  been  evi- 
dent at  the  first  glance. 

Again  we  went  into  one  of  the  beer-gardens, 
this  time  at  midday. 


[86] 


XXXIII 

On  this  day  the  sluices  gave  way,  and  I  reveled 
in  pouring  out  my  heart,  in  the  confession  of  my 
insane  passion.  This  was  a  deliverance,  a  relief 
that  had  never  hitherto  been  vouchsafed  me. 
I  found  or  thought  I  found  in  Vigottschinsky  a 
man  who  not  only  knew  how  to  honor  my  con- 
fidence, but  had  the  deepest  understanding  of  my 
distress. 

I  asked  him  on  his  conscience  whether  he 
thought  there  was  any  hope  that  I  might  ever 
possess  this  creature,  without  whom  I  was  unable 
to  live.  And  I  was  overjoyed  when  he  uncon- 
ditionally affirmed  it. 

He  then  confirmed  me  in  what  I  already 
thought  I  knew,  that  for  me  everything  depended 
either  on  attaining  distinction  as  an  author  by 
some  lucky  stroke,  or  else  on  getting  a  fortune. 
But  the  latter  was  probably  the  easier  and  more 
obvious  method,  and  he  would  advise  me  to  pur- 
sue it. 

He  mentioned  to  me  a  number  of  cases  where 
a  single  good  idea  had  made  its  discoverer  a  rich 
man  over  night.     Such  ideas  he  had  often  had 

[87] 


himself,  but  they  had  mostly  been  stolen  from 
him  by  so-called  friends  and  had  brought  riches 
not  to  him  but  to  them. 

After  we  had  eaten,  and  as  we  still  went  on 
drinking,  we  fell  into  an  endless  building  of  air- 
castles,  and  both  of  us  grew  so  excited  over  it 
that  we  swore  eternal  friendship.  We  stood  up, 
drank  solemnly  with  linked  arms,  to  the  astonish- 
ment of  the  people  who  sat  round  about  us,  and 
even  sealed  our  union  with  the  customary  kiss  of 
brotherhood. 

Hereupon  we  shook  h^nds,  expressed  our  joy 
at  having  found  each  other,  and  mutually  pledged 
our  word  that  neither  would  undertake  anything 
without  the  other. 

With  that  our  relations  had  naturally  taken 
on  a  different  aspect.  We  were  now  friends,  in- 
deed brothers,  and  could  be  frank  with  each  other 
in  everything. 

Vigottschinsky  said,  "All  right,  we  are  friends, 
and  we  want  to  make  money.  We  want,  let's 
say,  to  make  money  by  commerce.  We  must 
register  and  advertise  a  firm,  quite  unobtrusively 
if  you  like.  Or  we'll  simply  advertise  and  not 
have  the  firm  registered.     We'll   rent  a  little 

[88] 


office  and  stock  up  with  some  article  or  other  that 
people  are  apt  to  fall  for:  suppose  it's  a  hair- 
wash  or  a  mouth-wash  or  a  mineral  water.  It 
could  just  as  well  be  a  remedy  for  debility  or  a 
specific  to  produce  a  handsome  bust,  or  anything 
else.  Business  is  business.  A  real  merchant 
won't  shrink  from  any  article  that  brings  in 
money.  We'll  advertise  and  have  the  money 
sent  in  advance.  In  this  way,  if  all  goes  well, 
you  get  hold  of  some  capital.  The  advertising 
section  of  the  newspaper  is  a  keyboard  that  con- 
jures up  ducats  instead  of  music  if  you  know  how 
to  play  on  it.  Then  when  you  have  the  capital, 
you  take  maybe  two  percent  of  it,  have  your  ar- 
ticle manufactured,  and  ship  it  out.  If  the  peo- 
ple have  to  wait  a  bit,  that  does  no  harm." 

I  made  some  objections  to  this. 

"Oh  shucks,"  he  continued,  "every  druggist 
makes  a  hundred  percent  profit,  and  there  are 
absurd  earnings  in  the  bank  business.  Every 
cigarette-manufacturer  wants  to  get  out  seventy 
or  eighty  percent.  In  business  life  you  can't  be 
squeamish." 

Two  thirds  of  my  thousand-mark-note  had  been 
spent  by  this  time.     I  had  informed  my  new 

[89] 


friend  of  its  provenance.  Now  when  I  called  to 
his  attention  the  fact  that  advertising  itself  re- 
quired some  capital,  he  declared  instantly  and 
without  reflection  that  Aunt  Schwab  must  ad- 
vance it. 

Thus  was  laid  on  that  day  the  foundation  for 
the  conspiracy  against  her  to  which  she  fell  a 
victim. 


[90] 


XXXIV 

The  plan  seemed  at  first  not  so  perfidious  as  it 
turned  out  later  on.  Vigottschinsky  knew  from 
me  how  much  influence  I  had  with  Aunt  Schwab, 
and  I  knew  that  he  too  had  been  establishing 
himself  more  and  more  solidly  in  her  confidence. 
I  have  already  said  that  I  am  not  wholly  clear  as 
to  the  character  of  his  relations  with  her. 

Well,  let  us  rather  say:  I  am  clear. 

I  spare  nobody,  because  I  must  serve  the  truth 
in  this  book  as  best  as  I  can,  and  besides,  there 
is  here  no  question  of  good  and  evil. 

I  do  not  pronounce  sentence  upon  myself ;  how 
should  I  do  so  by  others^ 

Vigottschinsky,  who  was  a  cynic  through  and 
through,  had  evoked  Aunt  Schwab's  eroticism, 
perhaps  intentionally,  and  had  left  it  by  no  means 
unused. 

So  if  he  and  I  joined  forces  against  my  aunt, 
we  should  represent  a  power  over  her  which  she 
herself  had  granted  us,  and  for  which  she  was 
probably  no  match.  And  we  already  had  so 
much   confidence   in   each   other   as   hard-boiled 

[91] 


knights  of  industry,  that  we  unreservedly  ad- 
mitted this  state  of  affairs  to  ourselves  and  based 
our  plan  of  campaign  on  it. 


[92] 


XXXV 

I  SHOULD  be  to  this  day  the  same  diabolical 
scoundrel  that  I  must  have  appeared  to  be  then, 
if  I  had  in  those  days  had  my  feet  on  the  ground. 
But  the  power  of  Eros  had  detached  me  from  the 
earth  and  held  me  fettered  m  a  fixed  immaterial 
sphere.  Hence  I  can  say  today  with  a  good  con- 
science that  if  I  did  sink  into  the  abyss  of  crime, 
it  was  due  to  no  really  earthly  motive  and  hence 
no  base  one. 

To  deeds  of  drunkenness  the  courts,  perhaps 
wrongly,  allow  the  familiar  mitigating  circum- 
stances. A  man  is  not  held  for  the  blind  and 
perhaps  bloody  deed  that  he  commits  in  a  fever 
that  is  physically  proven  to  have  risen  to  104  de- 
grees and  more.  Such  a  man  is  not  responsible. 
Was  I  at  the  time  responsible? 

Such  a  bewitchingly  beautiful  child  as  Veron- 
ica Harlan,  on  the  strength  of  what  I  could  have 
confessed  as  to  her  influence  over  me,  would  have 
been  taken  to  the  public  square  in  the  dark  ages 
and  burned  as  a  witch. 

I  mean  by  this  to  say  no  more  than  that  the 
power  of  love  seemed  supernatural   in  bygone 

[93] 


days.  What  do  you  suppose  I  should  have  said 
to  my  confessor,  in  the  days  of  which  the  wonder- 
ful Gothic  architecture  of  the  Breslau  city  hall 
bears  witness,  and  especially  the  whipping-post 
before  it,  about  the  influence  of  the  hardware- 
dealer's  daughter  over  me*? 

"Your  Reverence,  I  was  a  peaceful  person  and 
I  have  lost  all  peace,  I  was  as  industrious  and  as- 
siduous as  an  ant  and  now  I  have  become  an  idler, 
I  was  as  unexacting  as  a  lame  cab-horse  and  now 
I  have  become  a  libertine  and  a  glutton.  I  used 
to  love  my  mother  more  than  anything:  if  she 
should  die  to-day,  I  should  not  need  to  brush 
away  a  tear.  I  used  to  love  God  and  heaven,  and 
fear  the  devil  and  his  hell;  but  tell  me  to-day 
where  Veronica  Harlan  is,  and  though  she  dwell 
in  hell,  I  will  renounce  God  and  heaven  for  ever 
more. 

"From  the  moment  when  I  first  saw  the  girl 
dates  this  alteration.  I  have  never  touched  Ve- 
ronica's finger,  or  exchanged  so  much  as  a  word 
with  her,  and  yet  whether  far  or  near  she  has  ab- 
solute power  over  me.  Remote  in  the  flesh,  she 
is  nevertheless  everywhere  present  to  me.  She 
floats  in  through  my  open  window  by  night  and 

[94] 


glides  with  equal  ease  through  the  thickest  wall. 
She  causes  me  torments  which  are  not  readily  de- 
scribed, and  raptures  which  can  be  described  no 
better.  She  scorches  my  brain,  she  burns  my 
liver.  She  makes  me  mad.  Make  the  witch 
take  pity  on  me,  or  I  renounce  eternal  bliss,  and 
you  will  cut  down  my  hanged  body  from  the 
door-post." 

After  such  a  confession  the  Inquisitor  would 
not  long  have  hesitated  to  deliver  Veronica  Har- 
lan over  to  the  torture. 

Either  I  had  to  die,  or  to  find  ways  and  means 
of  winning  Veronica  Harlan  and  so  securing  de- 
liverance. But  the  ways  I  had  hitherto  trod, 
with  and  without  Vigottschinsky,  were  of  an  ex- 
travagant nature.  That  they  were  in  reality  not 
practicable  I  did  not  see,  because  the  monstrous  il- 
lusory power  of  love  had  taken  from  me  all  sense 
of  the  power  of  reality^ 


1951 


XXXVI 

It  was  fast  approaching  midnight,  and  Vigot- 
tschinsky  and  I  were  still  sitting  harmoniously 
together  and  making  our  plans.  Of  course  we 
had  long  ceased  to  sit  in  the  beer-garden,  and  had 
changed  our  quarters  several  times.  We  had 
gone  over  from  beer  to  wine,  because  our  con- 
fidence in  early  and  large  gains  rose  from  minute 
to  minute  and  I  therefore  did  not  need  to  put 
any  value  on  saving  still  further  the  rest  of  my 
thousand-mark-note. 

It  might  have  served  me  as  a  warning  that  this 
day  had  an  excessively  strange  ending,  and  in 
the  end  not  a  good  one.  But  I  kept  seeing  noth- 
ing but  my  goal.  It  was,  as  we  know,  a  goal  in 
the  clouds. 

We  entered  at  about  half-past  eleven  a  cer- 
tain centre  of  night-life,  to  which  Vigottschinsky 
had  introduced  me  because  it  was  the  meeting- 
place  of  the  handsomest  and  costliest  prostitutes. 
It  was  called  a  cafe-restaurant,  and  one  could 
drink  in  it  coffee,  either  iced  or  with  milk,  tea, 
chocolate,  Pilsen  beer,  every  sort  of  brandy,  and 

[96] 


every  sort  of  wine  up  to  the  best  French  cham- 
pagne. Also  there  were  suppers  served  at  many 
tables. 

It  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  seen  such  a  gen- 
teel harlots'  resort,  gleaming  and  sparkling  with 
gilt  tapestries,  mirrors,  and  huge  chandeliers  hung 
with  glass  prisms.  It  is  then  not  to  be  wondered 
at  if  the  flood  of  light,  the  evening  gowns  of  the 
ladies,  the  tuxedos  of  the  gentlemen,  the  waiters 
in  elegant  dress-suits,  the  dazzling  white  napery 
and  shirt-fronts,  at  first  intimidated  me  consid- 
erably. I  even  wondererd  for  a  moment  whether 
they  might  not  show  us  the  door.  This  was  un- 
fortunately not  the  case. 

It  did  not  take  twenty  minutes  to  get  used  to 
things,  and  I  saw  myself  being  served  by  a  dis- 
tinguished gentleman  in  full  dress,  who  treated 
me  like  a  minister  of  state. 

I  was  really  astonished  at  the  progress  I  had 
already  made. 

Vigottschinsky  unobtrusively  called  my  atten- 
tion to  certain  rules  of  propriety  to  be  observed 
here:  that  you  must  not  put  your  knife  in  your 
mouth,  and  that  you  didn't  tap  on  your  glass  to 

[97] 


call  the  waiter;  but  yet  he  said  that  nobody  could 
possibly  detect  that  I  had  not  yet  mingled  in  such 
circles. 

I  thought  of  mother  and  our  apartment,  and 
shuddered.  I  betrayed  in  my  heart  simple  Mas- 
ter Stark  and  his  daughter,  thinking  that  they 
were  now  after  all  not  the  right  associates  for 
me.  Dear  father,  dear  Marie,  you  have  forgiven 
me  for  this  a  thousand  times. 

Four  or  five  gipsies  made  with  various  fiddles 
and  a  cembalo  some  wonderful  music,  which 
lulled  you  as  it  were  into  a  blissful  intoxication. 
I  at  once  resolved  that  on  this  day  I  should  not 
mind  the  three  hundred  marks  that  I  still  had  in 
my  pocket. 

I'll  not  be  shabby  here,  was  my  utterly  silly 
reflection,  for  I  am  taking  my  first  steps  on  the 
parquet-floor  of  the  elegant  world,  which  is  also 
Veronica's  world  (I  had  now  learned  her  name 
and  was  almost  always  whispering  it). 

But  perhaps  I  was  not  so  wrong  after  all. 
Among  the  gentlemen  there  were  those  whose  dis- 
tinguished origin  could  be  clearly  seen.  And  it 
later  transpired  that  even  the  son  of  the  president 

[98] 


of  the  provincial  council  was  occupying  the  table 
in  the  corner  with  his  ladies. 

When  I  said  at  the  beginning  that  it  was 
really  too  bad  that  we  had  not  been  induced  in 
one  way  or  another,  directly  upon  our  entrance, 
to  turn  around,  I  was  thinking  of  the  experience 
that  awaited  me  here.  There  were  clouds  gath- 
ering there  for  a  storm  that  even  in  retrospect 
brings  my  heart  up  into  my  throat. 


[99] 


XXXVII 

There  was  a  table  there  in  an  alcove  at  which 
quantities  of  champagne  were  being  drunk. 
There  were  six  persons  sitting  around  it,  three 
gentlemen  and  three  ladies.  They  were  excited 
and  never  stopped  laughing,  you  might  say.  Yet 
although  they  were  in  something  more  than  high 
spirits,  their  merriment  did  not  for  a  long  time 
transgress  the  bounds  of  what  is  customary  in  any 
decent  place. 

I  noted  that  Vigottschinsky  was  in  a  certain 
state  of  agitation  and  was  interested  in  one  of  the 
ladies  at  that  table,  who  had  her  back  to  us.  She 
was  a  type,  he  told  me,  such  as  he  had  only  once 
encountered  in  a  young  girl,  and  that  had  been  a 
Circassian. 

I  looked  that  way  and  was  likewise  attracted  in 
an  indefinable  way  by  the  vision,  which  I  only 
saw  from  behind.  She  had  something  strong  and 
youth-like  about  her,  one  might  say  something 
Appollonic.  But  you  found  yourself  thinking 
that  this  girl,  perhaps  not  so  long  ago,  might  have 
been  riding  half-wild  horses  without  saddle  or 
bridle  on  the  steppes  of  Asia, 
[loo] 


We  had  eaten  such  a  supper  as  I  had  hitherto 
not  even  dreamed  of.  Finally  Vigottschinsky 
ordered  champagne,  though  only  a  German  brand, 
which  I  of  course  had  to  pay  for,  as  well  as  for 
a  great  sea-crab  he  had  ordered.  I  must  now 
learn  to  know  all  these  things,  he  told  me. 

Engrossed  afresh  in  crab,  champagne,  chim- 
eras, and  everything  else  imaginable,  I  had  paid 
no  further  attention  to  the  table  and  girl  just 
mentioned,  and  hence  had  not  remarked  what  Vi- 
gottschinsky suddenly  communicated  to  me  as 
quietly  as  possible. 

He  had  kept  the  girl  incessantly  in  view,  and 
claimed  to  have  observed  that  she  had  looked 
around  at  me  several  times,  and  when  I  tried  with 
the  utmost  sincerity  to  talk  him  out  of  it,  he  swore 
that  it  was  so,  and  that  I  could  pride  myself  on 
the  conquest  I  had  made. 

I  wanted  to  speak  of  other  things,  but  he 
would  not  desist,  saying  that  there  were  even 
stirrings  of  jealousy  at  the  table  in  question. 

By  this  time  it  was  probably  an  hour  after 
midnight.  Fresh  arrivals  hardly  came  in  any 
more,  or  if  they  did,  it  was  gentlemen  whose  hats 
were  pushed  far  back,  who  talked  loudly  and  un- 

[101] 


ceremoniously  and  whose  companions  did  like- 
wise, or  at  times  even  shrieked  quite  discordantly. 

At  the  tables  in  the  restaurant,  too,  there  was 
likewise  greater  freedom  and  vivacity  now. 

On  the  strength  of  Vigottschinsky's  assertions  I 
could  hardly  help  trying  to  pick  up  this  and  that 
from  the  conversation  at  the  champagne-table — 
only  there  were  hardly  any  but  champagne-tables 
now!  And  it  was  really  the  fact  that  the  Cir- 
cassian's beautiful  wrists,  at  first  only  half  in 
jest,  were  being  tightly  held  by  her  elegant  escort, 
to  prevent  her  from  looking  around.  Yet  she 
turned  her  Apoll ine  head  on  its  proud  neck  far 
enough  around  to  look  me  in  the  face. 

Thereupon  her  partner,  the  elegant  gentleman, 
was  ridiculed  by  the  rest  of  the  table. 

A  thrill  passed  through  me  when  she  looked  at 
me.  But  I  was  so  infinitely  far  from  taking  any 
account  of  an  event  like  this  that  I  gazed  quite 
blankly  into  the  beautiful  eyes  of  the  girl ;  I  was 
indeed  smitten  by  her  beauty,  wholly  strange  to 
me  and  of  a  primitive  exuberance,  but  I  was  still 
far  from  taking  any  further  interest  in  her. 

Vigottschinsky  and  I  had  studiously  continued 
our  conversation.  When  I  looked  up  after  a 
[102] 


time,  the  elegant  partner  of  the  Circassian  had 
turned  his  chair  half  around  towards  our  table 
and  was  staring  at  me  with  scornful  challenge. 

People  were  already  beginning  to  notice  the 
proceedings. 

Now  the  Circassian  tried  on  her  gallant  what 
he  had  vainly  tried  on  her.  But  she  had  as  little 
success  in  drawing  him  back  into  the  circle  as  he 
had  had  in  restoring  her  exclusive  interest  to  his 
companions.  Then  she  hit  upon  the  idea  of  hold- 
ing her  dainty  handkerchief  before  his  eyes.  An- 
grily he  thrust  it  aside  and  rose  from  his  chair 
with  a  quick  jerk.  I  can  still  see  how  his  hand- 
some face,  flushed  with  wine,  grew  alarmingly 

grey. 

What  happened  now,  and  with  the  speed  of 
lightning,  was  so  surprising  to  every  one,  and  to 
me  no  less,  that  I  cannot  recall  ever  having  felt 
as  helpless  as  I  did  then. 

For  before  I  had  made  up  my  mind  as  to  the 
best  way  of  taking  the  edge  off  this  most  baseless, 
silly  comedy  of  jealousy,  the  mad  Circassian  was 
suddenly  beside  me  and  laughing  as  she  gave  me 
—who  had  jumped  up  in  alarm— three,  four, 
five,  six  hearty  kisses. 

[103] 


XXXVIII 

It  will  have  been  guessed  whom  I  had  met  in 
this  way  and  at  such  a  place.  It  was  revealed,  in 
a  certain  sense,  that  my  sister  was  still  the  same 
wilful  and  independent  girl  as  before,  and  that 
she  still  had  her  heart  in  the  right  place.  How- 
ever, her  mad  conduct  caused  me  great  embarrass- 
ment in  the  fact  that  I  had  met  her  at  all  in  this 
quarter. 

But  at  any  rate  our  relationship  was  now 
cleared  up  to  the  satisfaction  of  her  jealous  lover, 
and  we,  Vigottschinsky  and  I,  were  induced  to 
take  seats  in  the  alcove  with  the  three  couples. 

The  conversation  at  their  table  had  all  at  once 
grown  quite  frosty.  The  spirit  of  the  cham- 
pagne seemed  to  have  evaporated.  The  touch- 
ing reunion  of  brother  and  sister  made  every  one 
thoughtful. 

Then  too,  I  must  have  cut  a  sorry  figure  despite 
my  ready-made  suit. 

And  now  my  sister  Melanie,  too,  had  suddenly 

lost  her  wild  mood,  and  shrank  into  her  shell 

in  my  presence  like  a  schoolgirl.     The  expression 

on  her  face  showed  embarrassment,  almost  timid- 

[104] 


ity.  My  presence  seemed  for  the  first  time  to 
make  her  conscious  that  she  had  become  a  demi- 
mondaine  of  city-wide  repute.  This  fact  I  was 
also  having  to  digest. 

She  wanted  to  ask  after  mother,  I  could  see. 
She  wanted  to  ask  me  how  I  had  come  by  this 
friend  and  into  this  resort.  She  was  ashamed 
of  her  company  and  of  her  lover,  she  would  have 
done  anything  to  get  rid  of  them. 

No  one  will  be  surprised  that  this  group  was 
not  exactly  pleased  with  the  sudden  turn  of 
affairs,  which  it  also  felt,  and  that  the  one  who 
had  caused  it  was  surveyed  with  rather  ill-favored 
glances. 

My  situation  was  certainly  of  a  sort  to  en- 
courage repentance.  And  I  really  had,  in  this  re- 
sort and  in  this  circle,  as  I  sat  beside  my  sister, 
the  feeling  of  being  pilloried.  I  should  have 
liked  to  steal  away  urmoticed,  or  still  rather  to  be 
herding  sheep,  perhaps,  somewhere  in  Turkey  a 
thousand  miles  away.  I  had  the  feeling  of  be- 
ing leprous,  scabious,  a  pariah,  whereas  shortly 
before  I  had  felt  as  if  I  were  already  admitted 
to  full  membership  in  the  upper  ten  thousand. 
There  came  upon  me,  perhaps  for  the  first  time 
[>o5] 


in  my  life,  a  fury  against  the  class  whose  sons 
were  brought  up  with  horses  and  servants,  gover- 
nesses and  mistresses,  French  cookery  and  costly 
wines,  and  could  buy  with  money  the  body  of  my 
sister. 

I  must  have  appeared  not  quite  kosher  to  those 
around  me.  I  felt  dangerous  forces  rising  in 
me.  It  was  as  if  my  shame  were  turning  every 
minute  more  and  more  into  bitterness  and  silent 
rage.  There  was  a  danger,  and  it  was  recog- 
nized by  my  sister,  that  some  sort  of  kindling 
spark  might  fall  into  my  soul  and  cause  an  ex- 
plosion. 

My  sister  recognized  too  late  that  it  would 
have  been  better  for  her  and  for  me  not  to  have 
made  herself  known  to  me.  I  told  myself,  to  be 
sure,  that  I  must  make  every  effort  to  keep  my 
feelings  in  check,  but  I  could  not  prevail  upon 
myself  to  accept  from  the  lover  who  was  buying 
her  the  glass  of  champagne  that  he  handed  to  me. 
Nor  could  I  avoid  turning  pale  in  the  act,  and 
failing  to  evade  his  glance  as  I  had  previously 
done  during  his  fit  of  jealousy. 

Strangely  enough,  I  was  also  ashamed  of  Vigot- 

[106] 


tschinsky.  I  found  it  natural,  and  yet  it  vexed 
me,  that  they  all  edged  away  from  him,  as  it 
were,  with  their  looks.  The  three  gentlemen 
might  have  been  barristers,  lieutenants  in  mufti 
or  something  similar.  They  had  waxed  mus- 
taches and  wore  their  hair  parted  in  the  middle. 

Although  I  had  to  gulp  down  a  tangle  of  emo- 
tions and  thus  had  enough  to  do  to  look  after  my- 
self, yet  I  saw  that  Vigottschinsky  was  greatly 
taken  aback  at  the  turn  of  affairs  with  his  Cir- 
cassian. And  I  noted  that  he  sought  my  sister's 
eye.  It  flashed  through  my  mind  at  once  that  if 
this  went  on  it  might  very  well  give  rise  to  a  fresh 
complication  of  jealousy.  Not  long  after,  how- 
ever, I  also  intercepted  a  strangely  searching 
glance  which  my  sister  was  directing  at  Vigott- 
schinsky. 

I  had  been  through  not  a  little  on  this  Sunday. 
My  nerves  had  been  played  upon  violently  and 
unbrokenly,  like  so  many  strings,  beginning  at 
the  encounter  with  Veronica  Harlan  and  her  grey- 
hound, through  all  the  planning  and  resolving  to 
the  oath  of  friendship,  and  in  the  wandering  from 
beer-hall  to  beer-hall,  from  wine-room  to  wine- 
[107] 


room.  The  meeting  with  my  sister  had  almost 
snapped  them  all  in  twain.  But  now  the  entire 
instrument  threatened  to  go  to  pieces  at  the 
slightest  additional  touch. 


[108] 


XXXIX 

Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  danger  of  a  conflict 
which  lay  in  the  tense  and  sultry  atmosphere  of 
that  evening  was  not  avoided.  I  should  be  re- 
luctant to  enter  into  the  description  of  ugly  de- 
tails. I  have  spent  a  beautiful  autumn  forenoon 
in  my  orchard  and  garden,  have  shaken  my  plum- 
tree,  and  performed  all  sorts  of  quiet  rustic  tasks. 
How  far  I  am  now  from  the  repulsive  entangle- 
ments of  that  time,  which  wound  about  my  feet 
like  hellish  brambles  because  I  had  my  eyes  not  on 
the  earth,  but  directed  to  a  divine  and  distant 
star.  But  I  will  continue  my  report  neverthe- 
less.. 

All  the  next  day  I  lay  a-bed  with  a  terrible 
seedy  feeling.  My  deeply  dejected,  in  truth  in- 
consolable, mother  nursed  me  in  silence  and  with 
a  face  that  seemed  to  me,  when  I  secretly  ob- 
served it,  to  be  turned  to  stone. 

Not  only  because  of  the  shooting  pains  in  my 
head,  which  were  due  to  the  liquors  I  had  drunk, 
did  she  make  cold  compresses  for  me,  but  also 
because  I  had  a  bruise  over  my  left  eye. 

It  resulted  from  a  nocturnal  brawl  in  front  of 
[109] 


the  Vincent  House,  and  in  particular  was  due  to 
a  cowardly  and  underhanded  blow  from  the  fist 
of  my  sister's  lover. 

With  that  obstinate  tenacity  which  is  at  tioies 
characteristic  of  the  drunken,  I  tried  to  induce 
my  sister  not  to  go  with  her  gallant,  but  to  go 
with  me  to  our  mother's.  For  this  I  was  called 
by  the  elegant  blackguard  the  most  disgusting 
names,  which  would  have  been  appropriate  if  I 
had  played  a  part  diametrically  opposite  to  my 
present  one,  i.  e.,  had  accepted  money  for  bring- 
ing my  sister  to  him.  I  was  walking  along  before 
him  in  silence  with  Vigottschinsky,  when  he  sud- 
denly dealt  me  from  behind  a  tremendous  blow 
on  the  cheek  with  the  palm  of  his  right  hand ;  that 
was  the  beginning  of  the  fight.  I  am  not  strong, 
but  I  know  that  the  next  minute,  strangely 
enough,  the  villainous,  cowardly  scoundrel  was 
lying  on  his  back,  and  that  I  was  kneeling  on  him 
with  my  hands  at  his  throat.  As  I  could  not  do 
this  indefinitely,  and  also  did  not  wish  to  throttle 
him,  I  declared  myself  ready  to  let  him  go,  on 
his  word  of  honor  that  he  would  keep  the  peace. 
This  word  of  honor  he  solemnly  gave  me  before 
the  whole  group,  which  was  still  together.  Never- 
[no] 


theless,  at  the  very  moment  when  I  took  my 
hands  away  he  drove  his  fist  into  my  face,  bellow- 
ing; "You  damned  curl" 

It  is  a  wonder  that  I  did  not  lose  my  eye. 


[hi] 


XL 

I  SEE  that  I  have  gone  into  details  again  after 
all.  Let  them  stand,  although  they  are  without 
significance  for  the  whole  story.  It  cannot  be 
helped  that  if  you  occupy  yourself  with  a  matter 
in  any  way  at  all,  it  will  to  a  certain  extent  get 
the  mastery  over  you. 

After  a  relatively  short  time  I  had  recovered 
and  could  pursue  the  realization  of  our  plans 
with  Vigottschinsky. 

My  mother  had  not  succeeded  in  getting  out 
of  me  what  had  really  taken  place  the  day  be- 
fore, and  how  I  had  got  into  my  terrible  condi- 
tion. Nor  did  she  subsequently  succeed  in  whee- 
dling out  of  me  anything  about  my  secret  love, 
nor  about  my  business  plans.  Vigottschinsky 
called  on  me  while  I  was  in  bed.  My  mother 
said  she  felt  a  horror  of  him,  and  I  could  see 
that  she  was  not  simply  talking. 

I  calmed  her  and  assured  her  that  she  would 
one  day  realize  what  a  lucky  chance  it  was  for 
us  that  I  had  found  this  man.  He  and  I  de- 
bated for  a  long  time  as  to  the  manner  in  which 

[112] 


we  should  wrest  from  Aunt  Schwab  the  working 
capital  we  required;  but  as  to  this  matter  also  I 
left  mother  completely  in  the  dark. 

It  may  be  asked  whether  the  adventure  with 
my  sister  must  not  have  led  to  my  conversion, 
whether  the  blow  at  my  eye  must  not  have  waked 
me  out  of  my  terrible  dream-life.  That  was  not 
the  case.  The  condition  which  I  had  experienced, 
and  into  which  I  had  been  cast  during  the  after- 
math of  my  debauch,  was  really  only  an  intensi- 
fication of  the  suffering  I  had  had  to  endure,  every 
day  and  every  hour  since  my  first  sight  of  little 
Veronica,  in  being  deprived  of  her,  banished  from 
her  presence.  Unless  I  could  cherish  and  foster 
at  least  a  hope  of  one  day  possessing  her,  life  had 
become  a  hell  to  me  in  any  case.  Since  this  hope, 
which  alone  kept  me  alive,  could  not  be  nourished 
by  reality — and  it  certainly  could  not — it  had  to 
go  on  twining  itself  about  illusions. 

Certainly  I  showed  myself  a  stranger  to  the 
world,  provincial  and  without  judgment,  in  find- 
ing it  possible  to  believe  that  a  poor  municipal 
clerk,  whose  sister  was  a  woman  of  the  streets, 
even  if  he  did  secure  some  little  fortune,  could 

[113] 


have  had  any  success  in  his  suit  for  the  hand  of 
the  only  daughter  of  wealthy  and  respected  peo- 
ple; and  to  that  extent  my  madness  did  have 
a  very  real  and  very  natural  foundation. 


[>H] 


XLI 

The  step  which  Vigottschinsky  and  I  planned 
to  take  with  regard  to  Aunt  Schwab  was  success- 
ful. It  is  fairly  indifferent  how  we  imposed  upon 
her,  and  what  we  made  her  believe.  I  have 
already  told  how  she  had  displayed  with  respect  to 
my  matrimonial  project  a  credulity  that  was  in- 
comprehensible to  me,  how  she  had  put  stock  in 
my  poetic  illusions  and  other  chimeras.  If  I  look 
for  explanations  today,  I  find  several.  She  had 
gained  her  unshakable  confidence  in  me  at  a  time 
when  I  thoroughly  justified  it.  She  knew  me  as 
sober  and  cautious  from  the  assistance  I  had  pre- 
viously given  her  in  business  affairs.  She  revered 
in  me  a  spirit  of  scrupulous  uprightness  which  to 
be  sure  at  the  same  time  disquieted  her  and  caused 
her  to  grant  me  only  a  partial  insight  into  her 
business. 

In  the  attempt  to  unravel  the  entanglements  of 
deceit,  one  gets  lost  in  the  labyrinth  of  its  eternal 
obscurities.  So  for  example  I  thought  that  my 
aunt  was  purposely  using  my  unsuspecting  hon- 
esty to  deceive  herself  and  others.  Really,  she 
had  formed  her  judgment  of  me  once  for  all, 

["5] 


and  had  filed  the  documents  away,  so  to  speak. 
The  riddle  I  now  presented  she  approached  from 
the  old  standpoint,  though  it  had  now  become  a 
false  one.  Besides,  my  good  aunt  knew  very 
well  that  she  had  sunk  below  the  social  plane  of 
her  parents.  But  callouses  had  formed  over  this 
sore  spot  in  her  consciousness,  and  under  such 
circumstances,  as  is  well  known,  they  are  doubly 
thick.  Accordingly  my  aunt  thought  herself 
convinced,  in  spite  of  all,  that  she  could  move  in 
the  highest  society  on  equal  terms,  wherefore  she 
was  about  as  favorably  affected  by  my  advance 
in  that  direction  as  one  morphium-addict  by  the 
confession  of  another  one.  After  all,  my  aunt 
had  a  true  and  genuine  respect  for  intellect. 
Although  she  unscrupulously  exploited  to  the  ut- 
most painters,  actors,  musicians,  singers,  young 
litterateurs,  and  so  on,  yet  they  were  the  object 
of  her  frequently  almost  idolatrous  admiration, 
whereof  an  autograph-album  which  she  possessed, 
with  many  famous  names  in  it,  gave  clear  evi- 
dence. Hence  she  took  it  as  an  accomplished 
fact  when  her  nephew  declared  that  he  would 
presently  move  upward  into  these  envied  circles, 
all  the  more  that  this  would  at  once  be  balm  to 

[116] 


her  wound  and  nourishment  to  her  presump- 
tion. 

We  had  then,  that  is  Vigottschinsky  and  I, 
coaxed  out  of  my  aunt  a  considerable  sum,  indeed 
a  substantial  capital,  with  which  we  established 
an  office  in  the  little  furnished  room  of  the  Aus- 
trian. The  fist-fight  in  front  of  the  Vincent 
House  had  broken  up  the  relation  between 
my  sister  and  her  lover.  I  had  done  my 
share  in  this  and  had  met  her  several  times 
for  that  purpose.  Strange,  I  had  never  come 
so  close  to  my  sister  before,  nor  she  to  me. 
Only  now  had  I  come  to  understand  her,  from 
my  eccentric  point  of  view,  and  by  this  very 
alteration  in  my  nature  I  possessed  an  attrac- 
tion for  her.  She  was  capable  and  honest  pt 
bottom,  and  she  now  threw  in  her  lot  with  mine 
again,  partly  out  of  a  craving  for  kinship,  partly 
because  I  had  fought  and  suffered  for  her.  We 
found  pleasure  in  each  other,  and  enjoyed  the  un- 
alloyed pleasure  of  feeling  that  after  so  many 
years  of  living  together  we  had  only  just  dis- 
covered each  other. 

To  be  sure,  the  bond  that  now  united  us  would 
hardly   have   held   very   long   without   Vigott- 

[117J 


schinsky.  It  was  some  time  before  I  found  this 
out. 

For  the  moment  I  suspected  nothing  when  he 
proposed  to  take  Melanie  into  our  firm,  as  it  were, 
and  turn  the  clerical  work  over  to  her.  Of  course 
I  knew  that  she  could  make  better  progress  with 
her  pen  than  I  or  my  brother  Hugo. 

Our  office  was  a  long  slit  with  a  single  window 
from  which  one  looked  down  at  the  entrance  to 
the  Lobe  Theatre.  Vigottschinsky's  bed  stood 
in  it,  and  there  was  just  room  enough  to  squeeze 
past  it  in  reaching  the  desk,  which  stood  by  the 
window.  The  room  had  old  dark  wallpaper, 
which  hung  down  in  spots.  Moreover  it  was 
high  and  hence  quite  sinister. 

Four  weeks  passed  in  conferences  in  this  room. 

These  conferences  were  however  nothing  more 
than  objectless  chatter,  which  was  spiced  with  im- 
moderate drinking  and  smoking,  and  which  be- 
came a  pleasure  that  we  sought  again  and  again. 

Objectless  chatter  is  perhaps  not  a  fitting  ex- 
pression, because  it  did  not  indeed  turn  on  actual 
and  sensible  objects,  but  so  much  the  more  on 
imaginary  and  senseless  ones.  These  have  the 
strongest  power  of  attraction  for  worthless  people. 
[u8] 


Air-castle-builders  and  idlers  of  every  sort  know 
that.  My  sister  was  a  permanent  member  of 
that  company. 

At  that  time  I  had  strangely  arrived  at  the 
settled  conviction  that  I  had  succeeded  in  the 
moral  redemption  of  my  sister,  in  lifting  her  out 
of  the  dens  of  vice.  I  was  so  blinded  as  to  see 
a  further  piece  of  good  luck  in  Vigottschinsky's 
liking  for  her,  especially  since  it  was  returned  and 
had  led  to  an  engagement.  This  engagement,  a 
marriage,  what  could  be  better  adapted  to  win 
back  my  sister  to  the  ranks  of  honest  citizens'? 

It  was  astonishing  to  see  the  power  that  Vigott- 
schinsky  had  gained  over  the  beautiful  girl.  Her 
self-will,  her  upright  nature,  her  contradictory 
spirit  were  as  if  blotted  out.  I  had  long  since 
had  to  form  suspicions  of  the  nature  of  the  rela- 
tions that  connected  my  sister  and  my  friend. 
But  I  had  too  much  to  contend  with  in  my- 
self, and  both  Vigottschinsky  and  Melanie  left 
nothing  undone  to  make  their  relation  appear 
like  a  serious,  straightforward,  and  lawful  one. 

In  the  Lobe  Theatre  they  were  playing  eve- 
ning after  evening,  "Around  the  world  in  eighty 
days."     Towards    nine    o'clock   they    regularly 

[119] 


executed  on  the  stage  a  surprise  attack  by 
Indians,  whose  shots  one  could  plainly  hear  in 
our  room.  Our  longing  to  travel,  to  roam 
through  the  wide  world,  was  of  course  always 
freshly  excited  by  this.  We  dreamed  of  adven- 
tures, fairy  lands,  and  riches.  In  this  and  other 
ways  time  was  squandered  and  money  wasted, 
without  our  making  a  beginning  at  any  business, 
reliable  or  unreliable. 

I  had  resigned  my  post  in  the  municipal  office 
as  soon  as  I  had  the  money  from  my  aunt  in  my 
pocket.  However,  it  was  not  quite  easy  to  take 
leave  of  my  place  by  the  window  of  the  city  hall, 
because  that  meant  giving  up  my  view  of  the 
whipping-post  as  well.  To  my  office  chief  I  had 
little  by  little  conveyed  a  fairy-tale  concerning 
the  change  in  my  fortunes,  in  which,  quite  se- 
riously, a  rich  marriage  and  incipient  literary 
fame  were  alternately  stressed  more  or  less.  But 
the  strangest  part  of  all  was  that  I  believed  the 
fairy-tale  myself. 


[120] 


XLII 

So  we  were  merchants  now  and  had  to  put  on  a 
good  social  front.  It  was  not  possible  to  do 
business  without  that.  Vigottschinsky  very  soon 
cut  quite  a  good  figure,  although  he  did  not  spend 
on  his  outfit  half  as  much  as  I.  They  say  that 
people  with  a  hump-back,  or  with  a  limp  like 
me,  not  infrequently  have  the  inclination  to  trick 
themselves  out  in  a  ridiculous  fashion.  I  too  fell 
a  prey  to  this  inclination.  I  thought  I  owed  it  to 
my  business,  to  my  importance  as  author,  and  to 
the  idol  of  my  love,  to  make  a  complete  dandy  of 

myself. 

So  I  bought  myself  white  collars  and  expen- 
sive linen,  four  or  five  stylish  suits,  patent 
leathers,  gloves,  cravats,  hats,  provided  myself 
with  a  stick-pin,  cuff-buttons,  and  a  gold  watch, 
and  when  I  was  thus  togged  out  and  in  my  silk- 
lined  summer  overcoat  was  striding  up  and  down 
Schweidnitz  Street,  I  never  passed  a  show-win- 
dow without  mirroring  my  idolized  person  in  it. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  we  also  used  my 
aunt's  capital  on  every  possible  occasion  to  give 
ourselves  a  good  time.     Every  day  we  went  to 
[121] 


beer-halls  and  beer-gardens,  and  sometimes  to 
those  unpretentious  wine-rooms  that  can  be  found 
in  Breslau. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  assume  that  I  did 
anything  at  this  or  at  any  time  without  ref- 
erence to  my  absurd  goal.  The  picture  of  Ve- 
ronica Harlan — not  the  one  that  lies  before  me, 
but  the  imaginary  one — did  not  leave  me  for  an 
instant,  nor  the  thought  of  it.  Of  course  she  is 
in  truth  the  epitome  of  sweetest  loveliness,  and 
was  still  more  so  in  the  intoxicating  exhalations 
of  my  soul.  Always  I  stood  under  the  spell  of 
a  constraint  that  completely  enslaved  me,  but  at 
the  same  time  turned  my  slavery  into  ecstasy. 
But  at  the  heart  of  this  ecstasy  dwelt  pain  and 
despair. 


[122] 


XLIII 

I  LOOK  back  upon  my  completed  existence  from 
a  distant,  lofty,  secure  position.  I  survey  the 
path,  the  network  of  roads,  and  the  landscape 
from  which  a  happy  exit  was  finally  found  after 
all.  The  Lorenz  Lubota  of  today,  whom  father- 
in-law  and  wife  call  Lenz,  has  made  the  Lorenz 
Lubota  of  the  past  the  object  of  his  meditation. 
JLenzI  They  call  me  Lenz  I  Well,  why  not*? 
Is  not  every  spring  [Lenz  is  a  word  for  spring. 
Tr.]  preceded  by  the  stormy  November,  the  dark 
December,  the  ice-  and  snow-bound  January,  in 
short  by  autumn  and  winter"?  Perhaps  they  are 
not  so  far  wrong  in  this  appellation,  if  it  is  to 
suggest  new  sprouts  and  the  blossoms  of  future 
fruits.  Is  there  not  growing  up  here  perhaps, 
under  the  calm  strokes  of  my  pen,  a  fruit?-  Is 
the  air  of  my  spirit  not  pregnant  with  sprouts  and 
strange  blossoms?  To  be  sure,  this  spring  that  I 
am  living  through  to-day  is  nothing  compared 
with  the  one  that  in  those  days  passed  over  my 
soul,  with  its  warm  showers,  fantastic  blooms, 
burning  suns,  and  delirious  tempests,  when  we 
were  engaged  in  squandering  the  gold  of  our  first 
[123] 


plunder.  Exuberant  raptures  like  those  of  that 
day  have  never  since  swelled  my  breast  to  burst- 
ing, but  to  be  sure  no  more  pains  have  harrowed  it 
such  as  were  then  my  daily  bread.  For  it  should 
by  no  means  be  thought  that  my  then  condition 
was  nothing  but  sheer  rapture.  I  had  rather  the 
feeling  that  blood  was  being  sucked  out  of  my 
heart  by  some  great  spider  day  and  night.  Hence 
I  have  written,  as  I  see  in  paging  these  leaves, 
that  a  pain  was  the  innermost  core  of  all  the  rap- 
tures I  felt.     And  that  pain  was  very  great. 

What  can  be  more  terrible  than  to  show  to 
a  thirst-parched  throat  the  mirage  of  the  coolest 
spring?  A  morbid,  lying,  deceptive  certainty, 
whereby  the  voice  of  hopelessness  has  been  buried 
and  violently  silenced.  What  can  be  more  pain- 
ful than  the  occasional  waking  of  the  sleep- 
walker, even  though  he  succeed  in  saving  himself 
from  a  plunge  into  the  depths  by  clinging  to  the 
eaves-trough?  Can  a  man  who  is  fundamentally 
honest  completely  forget  that  he  is  so,  and  put 
his  conscience  to  death?  I  at  least  never  had 
the  feeling  of  guiltlessness  when  I  was  running 
through  my  aunt's  money,  even  though  I  did  not 
exactly  let  the  feeling  of  guilt  rise  in  me.  I 
[124] 


mostly  used  to  gulp  down  the  dainties  of  the 
restaurants  like  so  much  gall  and  poison,  even 
though  I  did  not  know  it  outwardly.  Besides, 
I  was  so  to  speak  gutted  by  a  terrible  pas- 
sion. A  conflagration  raged  within  me.  I  could 
have  cried  out  to  my  judges  that  all  my  insane 
commissions  and  omissions  came  down  to  nothing 
more  than  the  attempt  to  put  out  this  ravaging 
fire.  I  could  have  proved  it  to  them,  or  else  I 
may  possibly  succeed  in  doing  it  with  this  memoir. 
I  could  have  wished  to  throw  myself  under  the 
wheels  of  an  omnibus,  I  have  somewhere  said. 
Not  once,  I  may  add,  but  countless  times  did  I 
think  of  that.  I  also  considered  putting  an  end 
to  myself  by  drowning  in  the  Oder,  or  with  the 
bullet  or  the  rope. 

But  from  all  this  I  was  restrained  by  the 
thought  that  I  should  thereby  leave  the  earth  on 
which  Veronica  was  living. 

I  do  not  conceal  from  myself  that  if  I  had 
attained  the  presumptuous  goal  I  then  sought, 
the  plane  of  happiness  secured  by  it  would  have 
been  a  very  different  and  much  higher  one  than 
that  plane  upon  which  I  can  stand  to-day  in  peace 
of  soul.     Earthly  rapture  would  then  have  at- 

[125] 


tained  to  a  supernatural  degree  and  would  have 
perhaps  been  unendurable  to  a  mere  mortal  in  its 
all-overshadowing,  blinding  splendor.  I  confess 
that  in  spite  of  being  wholly  cheerful  and  content 
in  my  peaceful  little  circle,  I  have  in  this  respect 
not  made  a  full  renunciation.  Only  I  have  trans- 
ferred all  fulfilments  of  that  sort  into  the  "better 
life." 


[126] 


XLIV 

I  COME  now  to  that  point  which  was  one  of  the 
most  momentous  in  my  complicated  course  of 
error,  self-deception,  megalomania,  and  crime. 
In  order  to  get  it  as  clear  as  possible,  I  discussed  it 
all  thoroughly  only  yesterday  with  my  father-in- 
law,  as  if  unintentionally,  sitting  in  the  arbor 
over  a  glass  of  beer.  The  good  old  man  knows 
that  I  am  working  on  the  story  of  my  fall  from 
grace,  a  belated  argument  for  the  defence  which 
is  to  teach  my  judges  to  understand  and  to  par- 
don; for  to  understand  all  means  to  pardon  all. 

Stark  still  regards  me  to  this  day,  as  in  the 
time  of  our  first  meeting,  as  the  great  writer  of 
the  future. 

There  can  be  nothing  pleasanter,  nothing  more 
comfortable,  than  our  evenings  in  the  summer- 
house.  Yesterday  it  was  especially  fine.  My 
Marie  of  the  simple  goodness,  with  the  heart  of 
purest  gold,  had  prepared  for  us,  as  always,  the 
most  delicious  supper,  consisting  of  eggs,  cheese, 
sour  milk,  and  fresh  bread  and  butter.  The  in- 
sects buzzed,  roses,  elders,  and  honeysuckle 
scented  the  air,  also  the  firs  on  the  edge  of  the 
['27] 


near-by  woods.  Though  it  had  grown  dark,  the 
air  had  not  lost  its  body-heat.  The  monstrous 
disk  of  the  moon  hung  behind  the  elders  and 
larches  along  the  village  brook.  The  murmur 
sounded  doubly  loud  in  the  nightly  stillness,  in 
which  not  a  twig  was  stirring.  Fireflies  gleamed 
in  the  grass  of  the  round  common. 

Marie  had  gone  back  into  the  house  when  I 
began  to  speak  of  my  hare-brained  suit  for  the 
hand  of  Veronica  Harlan. 

But  I  will  tell  it  as  it  happened. 

I  had  learned  that  the  lovely  girl  was  be- 
trothed, indeed  that  she  would  be  married  in  a 
few  days.  Vigottschinsky  had  got  the  informa- 
tion. That  was  of  course  wholly  absurd.  But 
just  as  on  the  one  hand  my  hope  grasped  at  every 
straw,  so  the  most  improbable  rumors  were  ca- 
pable of  casting  me  into  a  boiling  maelstrom  of 
torment.     In  short,  I  was  aflame  with  jealousy. 

Veronica  was  at  that  time,  I  judged,  about 
fourteen.  But  I  might  have  been  deceived,  she 
might  perhaps  be  between  fifteen  and  sixteen. 
Why  should  a  sixteen-year-old  girl  not  marry? 

And  what  might  not  and  could  not  be  possible 
and  usual  in  her  enviable  circle  *? 

[128] 


And  so  I  composed  that  letter  to  the  father  of 
the  child,  hardware-merchant  and  recently  ap- 
pointed kommerzienrat,  *  a  letter  which  to  this 
day  is  beyond  my  comprehension. 

I  could  not  help  it,  I  had  to  write  the  letter. 
It  was  as  if  somebody  else  guided  my  hand.  But 
always  when  I  spoke  of  this  circumstance,  or 
said  anything  about  Veronica,  I  mean  during  my 
trial,  I  was  told  that  they  were  not  interested  in 
that,  that  it  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the 
case.  Strange  enough  that  when  one  is  to  pass 
judgment  on  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  an  accused, 
the  essential  motivating  or  exonerating  factor 
is  not  included  in  the  scope  of  the  cross- 
examination. 

"What  are  your  letters  to  us*?"  they  said. 
"Write  as  many  letters  as  you  will,  we  don't 
care  about  them,  unless  they  contain  incrimina- 
ting or  exonerating  matter  with  respect  to  the 
crime  that  has  been  committed." 

My  letter  to  Mr.  Harlan  was  grandiloquent 
and  bumptious. 

1  Translator's  note.  "Councilor  of  Commerce,"  an  honorary 
title  bestowed  on  successful  financiers  and  business  men. 

[129] 


How  was  it  possible,  how  could  the  letter  of 
a  fundamentally  so  timorous,  so  modest,  nay  even 
so  sober  a  man  as  I,  who  had  a  pimply  complexion 
and  a  limp,  was  imperfectly  developed  owing  to 
lack  of  nourishment  in  his  youth,  and  was  repul- 
sively ugly  according  to  his  own  conviction,  turn 
out  so  impudent  and  arrogant?  It  must  have 
been  that  in  my  character,  as  you  might  say,  not 
one  stone  was  left  upon  another. 

"To  this  day  I  blush  with  shame,"  I  confessed 
to  my  father-in-law,  "when  I  think  of  that 
inexplicable  letter." 

For  I  had  declared  in  it  that  I  could  in  no 
case  consent  to  the  betrothal,  and  still  less  the 
marriage,  of  Veronica  Harlan  to  any  other  than 
myself. 

Thereupon  my  father-in-law  said,  "Why 
shouldn't  the  letter  have  been  dictated  to  you  by 
some  evil  Daemon  that  had  an  interest  in  putting 
you  in  a  hole?" 

I  have  forgotten  to  say  that  my  father-in-law 
had  been  an  active  spiritualist,  many  years  before 
we  knew  each  other,  and  that  during  that  time 
he  had  been  in  active  occult  communication  with 
his  deceased  wife  and  many  other  spirits.  When 
[130] 


we  became  acquainted,  he  had  already  given  up 
the  practice  of  table-tipping  and  in  fact  all  active 
spiritualism.  Marie  had  little  inclination  for  it, 
and  he  himself  had  lost  with  advancing  years 
that  passionate  curiosity  about  the  life  beyond. 
However,  he  possesses  a  work,  "Manuscripts  by 
Spirit  Hands,"  bound  by  himself  in  forty  hand- 
some volumes,  which  is  unique  in  the  world  and 
may  perhaps  some  day  attain  universal  signif- 
icance as  a  storehouse  of  unheard-of  revelations 
from  the  fourth  dimension.  I  myself  do  not  go 
near  it. 

Who  should  be  surprised  if  I  got  no  answer  to 
my  hare-brained  letter"?  It  is  well  known  that 
the  rich  not  infrequently  get  letters  from  insane 
people.  No  one  pays  any  attention  to  them. 
They  are  thrown  into  the  waste-basket. 

At  that  time,  however,  it  was  far  from  my 
thoughts  to  make  clear  to  myself  this  natural 
state  of  the  case,  and  more  and  more  I  enveloped 
myself  in  the  narcotic  exhalation  of  my  megalo- 
mania. 

Is  it  credible?  My  presumption  had  taken  an 
enormous  leap  upward  since  I  had  written  to  the 
rich  hardware  merchant.    The  bold  and  resolute 

[131] 


letter  to  this  patrician  gave  me  by  reaction  a 
feeling  of  social  equality.  I  carried  my  head 
much  higher  than  hitherto,  and  floated  in  a  stupe- 
fying sea  of  conceit.  I  thought  to  myself,  as  I 
walked  through  the  streets  and  the  passers-by 
streamed  past  me :  I  hope  you  are  not  unaware 
that  I  have  written  a  very  serious  message  to 
Mr.  Emmo  Harlan  to  tell  him  of  the  bone  I  have 
to  pick  with  him.  Yes,  I  know  he  did  not  an- 
swer. From  that  very  fact  you  can  see  the  effect 
my  letter  had. 

I  told  myself  in  quite  sober  earnest,  as  it 
seemed  to  me,  that  the  silence  of  the  great  mer- 
chant was  a  good  sign  for  me.  The  answer  to 
a  letter  like  mine  must  be  considered  from  every 
angle.  The  breaking-off  of  the  previous  engage- 
ment could  not  be  done  rapidly,  and  then  too  they 
would  probably  institute  inquiries  with  respect  to 
my  person.  But  in  my  megalomania — I  had 
been  told,  by  the  way,  that  the  poet  Byron  had 
also  had  a  club-foot! — I  did  not  doubt  that  I 
should  be  described  to  the  Harlan  family  as  the 
rising  star  in  the  poetic  firmament. 

[132] 


XLV 

One  day  while  I  was  thus  waiting,  I  was  again 
possessed  by  what  my  father-in-law  had  called 
an  evil  Daemon.  I  had  just  vainly  asked 
the  postman  once  more  about  the  expected  letter, 
when  I  ran  straight  home  to  change  my  clothes 
and  to  get  myself  up  with  a  solicitude  which  I 
must  at  present  characterize  as  absolutely  ridic- 
ulous. And  the  result  was  ridiculous,  too.  I 
might  easily  have  read  that  in  the  looks  that  fol- 
lowed me  with  ironical  astonishment. 

I  took  a  cab  and  gave  the  driver  a  definite 
address — you  will  guess  which  one. 

The  whole  thing  went  with  such  lightning 
speed  as  I  had  really  not  ventured  to  hope  for. 
I  had  assumed  the  title  of  Doctor  on  my  calling- 
cards.  The  servant  to  whom  I  gave  the  card 
disappeared  with  it  in  the  inner  apartments.  He 
returned,  and  I  was  ushered  into  a  blue  salon.  I 
had  to  wait  a  moment,  and  it  was  nearly  eleven 
o'clock  in  the  morning  before  the  beautiful  Mrs. 
Harlan  rustled  mto  the  salon.  She  immediately 
stopped  short,  as  if  she  had  expected  some  one 
else,  and  declared,  recovering  her  composure  di- 
[133] 


rectly,  that  that  had  indeed  been  the  fact.  She 
had  been  expecting  a  Doctor  von  Trota,  a  young 
assessor  and  a  friend  of  her  brother.  Then  she 
said,  ''But  what  do  you  wish*?  I  presume  you 
would  like  to  see  my  husband." 

I  answered  with  a  trace  of  timidity  that  that 
might  not  be  necessary  as  yet. 

Mrs.  Harlan  looked  searchingly  at  me.  She 
may  have  noticed  that  I  was  only  keeping  my 
composure  with  an  effort.  I  felt,  but  could  not 
help  it,  that  there  were  twitchings  around  my  lips, 
that  a  hard  lump  was  squeezing  my  throat,  and 
that  hot  tears  were  coming  into  my  eyes. 

"What  is  your  pleasure.  Doctor^"  she  said 
then. 

But  suddenly  she  bethought  herself  and  cried, 
as  if  she  had  now  guessed  the  reason  for  my  com- 
ing, "Of  course,  of  course,  take  a  seat  I  I  had 
almost  forgotten  that  we  have  advertised  for  a 
tutor  for  our  Veronica.  I  am  surely  not  mistaken 
in  the  assumption  that  your  call  is  connected  with 
that." 

I  thought  of  my  pedagogical  leanings  and  my 
studies. 

For  reply  I  said,  "No,  dear  madam,  the  days 

[134] 


in  which  I  should  have  accepted  a  mere  tutor- 
ship are  forever  past." 

I  myself  was  somewhat  taken  aback  when  this 
strange  answer  had  escaped  me.  I  felt  such  a 
giddiness  as  if  I  had  leaped  across  an  abyss,  but 
was  still  unable  to  get  a  firm  footing  on  the  other 
side  after  my  foolhardy  leap.  And  in  other  ways 
my  answer  did  not  satisfy  me.  If  I  had  only  not 
put  in  that  word  "mere." 

"Do  you  consider  a  position  as  tutor  to  a  young 
and  talented  child  something  so  insignificant*?" 
Mrs.  Harlan  naturally  rejoined  with  astonished 
mien. 

Then  I  vigorously  pulled  myself  together  and 
said  how  gladly  I  should  certainly  accept  such  a 
position  if  I  had  not  taken  the  liberty  of  calling 
about  a  different,  far  more  important,  and  far 
more  serious  matter. 

I  had  now  reached  the  outermost  tip  of  the 
rocky  promontory,  from  which  there  was  nothing 
but  a  leap  into  empty  space. 


[135] 


XLVI 

Today  I  am  sober  and  in  perfect  health.  All 
the  more  I  must  say  to  myself  that  that  person, 
who  was  then  in  the  house  of  the  hardware-mer- 
chant as  suitor  for  his  daughter's  hand,  was  a  sick 
man.  Why,  it  is  impossible  for  me  today  even 
to  understand  my  conduct  at  that  time.  There 
are  crises  of  growth,  crises  of  puberty,  which  are 
an  inevitable  and,  as  it  were,  healthy  malady. 
It  may  perhaps  have  been  such  a  so-called  chil- 
dren's disease,  some  kind  of  infection. 

My  feeling  at  that  time,  even  when  I  was  fac- 
ing the  beautiful  Mrs.  Harlan,  was  that  I  should 
not  act  as  I  was  acting,  had  I  not  lost  a  certain 
inhibiting  power  over  certain  forces  of  my  soul. 

My  conduct  was  that  of  a  high-flyer,  unless 
it  was  that  of  a  lunatic. 

I  come  to  that  part  of  my  speech,  and  of  my 
general  conduct  at  that  hour  of  irresponsibility 
in  the  house  of  the  hardware-merchant,  that  has 
remained  fixed  in  my  memory. 

"Dear  madam,"  I  said,  "it  would  be  a  very 
special  honor  to  me  to  act  as  tutor  to  your  daugh- 
ter, if  my  destiny  and  the  hand  of  God  had  not 

[136] 


directed  me  to  far  higher  goals  and  especially  one 
higher  goal.  My  father  was  a  staff-officer" — the 
green  tax-collector's  uniform  of  my  father  gave 
me  this  idea! — "my  education  most  careful. 
From  childhood  on  I  have  received  plain  indica- 
tions of  every  sort,  that  pointed  to  a  great  future 
career  for  me.  I  should  not  wish  to  appear 
boastful,  but  I  may  be  permitted  to  inform  you 
of  the  fact  that  this  coming  autumn  a  drama  of 
mine,  'Konradin  von  Hohenstaufen,'  is  to  be 
performed  in  the  local  tnunicipal  theatre.  A 
great  scholar  whom  I  will  not  name,  and  who 
possesses  the  largest  library  in  Breslau" — I  was 
thinking  of  my  present  father-in-law,  the  Master 
Bookbinder  Stark — "has  designated  this  work  as 
perhaps  the  greatest  since  Friedrich  Schiller. 

"I  am  well-to-do,  dear  madam.  How  else 
could  I  have  ventured  on  this  step*?  My  finan- 
cial assets  are  invested  in  safe  securities.  Also  I 
am  a  partner  in  a  well-inaugurated  commission- 
business,  but  to  be  sure  only  nominally,  since  my 
ideal  inclinations  and  aptitudes  disqualify  me 
for  a  strictly  commercial  career.  Dear  madam, 
as  a  genius  I  stand  to  be  sure  at  the  beginning  of  a 
long  and  thorny  path.  But  I  hope  to  be  wor- 
[137] 


thy  of  my  talents  and  to  endure  to  the  end 
the  divinely  ordained  martyrdom" — I  hastily 
added — "of  the  great  poet  and  thinker.  I  am  re- 
signed to  the  mockery,  the  misunderstanding,  nay 
even  the  blindness  of  my  fellow-men,  for  did  not 
a  far  loftier  than  I  not  shrink  from  the  path  to 
Golgotha?  Permit  me  then,  dear  madam,  to 
present  myself  as  the  author  of  that  letter  which 
your  husband  doubtless  received  about  two  weeks 
ago.  The  writer  says  that  he  has  an  older  claim, 
a  higher  claim  to  the  hand  of  your  daughter  than 
any  other,  and  goes  on  seriously  to  prefer  his  suit. 
Be  assured,  dear  madam,  that  I  am  most  sacredly 
in  earnest  in  this  matter." 


[138] 


XLVII 

I  DO  not  know  where  I  may  have  picked  up  all 
these  well-turned  phrases.  They  came  from  my 
lips  as  smooth  as  butter  and  without  the  least 
hesitation.  And  this  is  certain:  while  I  was 
speaking  I  believed  what  I  said. 

Just  by  the  mere  sight  of  the  mother  of  Veron- 
ica, my  idol,  I  was  lifted  up  above  the  real  solid 
ground  of  real  things. 

Yet  it  was  of  course  an  incredibly  injudicious 
act  to  involve  myself  in  so  coarse  a  web  of  lies, 
which  could  so  easily  be  torn  asunder  by  anyone 
but  myself.  Across  the  way  was  the  office  in 
which  I  had  worked  for  my  mother  and  her  chil- 
dren as  a  poor  starveling.  A  step  to  the  police- 
station  would  be  sufficient  to  determine  exactly 
what  was  my  origin  and  my  general  situation. 
But  in  the  exalted  state  in  which  I  was,  with  the 
fear  which  impelled  me  and  the  splendor  that 
was  luring  me  on,  the  thought  of  being  unmasked 
was  as  far  from  me  as  from  a  man  with  the  best 
conscience  in  the  world. 

Mrs.  Harlan  had  listened  attentively  to  me. 
It  seemed  to  me  several  times  as  if  she  were 
[139] 


looking  hastily  about  her,  as  though  seeking  aid. 
When  I  had  said  everything,  as  I  thought,  and 
was  waiting  in  expectant  silence,  she  rose,  went 
to  the  wall,  and  seemed  about  to  ring  an  electric 
bell.  As  she  did  so  she  said,  "Your  proposal,  sir, 
is  very  honorable."  Then  she  added  in  effect 
that  her  daughter  was  to  be  sure  still  a  mere 
child,  and  too  young  to  marry.  But,  all  in  good 
time,  for  today  she  would  say  neither  yes  nor  no. 

While  she  was  saying  this  and  other  things 
like  it,  a  servant  came  in  and  soon  after  Mr. 
Harlan  himself. 

Harlan  was  slender,  carefully  and  even  ele- 
gantly dressed,  and  had  trinkets  of  coral  on  his 
gold  watch-chain.  I  immediately  resolved  to  buy 
myself  watch-charms  of  the  same  kind.  And  I 
subsequently  did  so,  but  of  course  they  took  away 
from  me  all  my  finery — not  that  I  am  shedding 
any  tears  over  them — as  goods  stolen  from  my 
aunt.  Mr.  Harlan  entered,  and  his  wife,  as  I 
distinctly  observed,  winked  at  him  as  she  in- 
formed him  of  the  subject  of  our  conversation. 


[140] 


XLVIII 

Before  I  again  stepped  into  the  cab  that  was 
waiting  for  me  before  the  driveway  of  the  Har- 
lan house,  I  could  not  forego  standing  still  and 
letting  my  eyes  stray  over  the  Ring,   while  I 
slowly  buttoned  my  kid  gloves.     My  conceit,  or 
rather    my    self-deception,    and   my    folly    had 
reached  their  highest  point.     In  my  own  eyes  I 
had  achieved  a  fabulous  success.     Today  I  know, 
of  course,  why  Mr.  Harlan  acted  and  had  to  act, 
as  he  did,  as  if  he  were  agreeing  completely  to 
my  proposal.     He  simply  took  me  to  be  what  I 
was.     And  because  it  is  dangerous  to  arouse  a 
lunatic,  the  best  thing  to  do  is  to  give  him  no 
occasion  for  contradiction. 

Upon  my  persistent  urging  the  following  ques- 
tions had  been  discussed  before  I  went :  whether  I 
might  see  and  speak  with  Veronica,  whether  I 
might  write  to  her,  and  how  long  they  wished  to 
postpone  the  marriage.  "I  propose,"  said  Har- 
lan lightly,  "that  we  let  three  months  elapse  be- 
fore you  speak  to  my  daughter.  I  shall  regard  it 
as  unnecessary  that  you  should  correspond  with 
her  for  the  present.  After  the  lapse  of  that  time 
[141] 


we  can  see  whether  your  affection  has  remained 
constant.  But  we  must  positively  allow  my  little 
Veronica,"  he  ended,  "two  years  for  her  develop- 
ment before  she  is  led  to  the  altar." 

My  present  belief  is  that  my  courtship  was 
regarded  in  the  Harlan  house  as  a  welcome  jest, 
and  was  thoroughly  and  heartily  laughed  at. 

For  me,  to  be  sure,  it  was  more  than  a  jest. 

I  was  ready  to  burst  with  pride  and  presump- 
tion as  I  stood  there,  still  unable  to  decide  to  step 
into  the  closed  cab.  I  looked  up  at  the  windows 
of  the  Harlans'  house,  in  the  hope  of  catching 
sight  of  my  beloved.  To  a  fellow-employee  from 
the  city  hall,  who  noticed  me  and  bowed,  I  paid 
no  attention.  I  saw  my  present  father-in-law, 
the  worthy  grey-beard,  being  led  by  Marie — he 
needed  that  support  on  account  of  his  weak  eyes 
— approaching  on  the  sidewalk.  The  kind  people 
discovered  me.  Marie  blushed  to  her  eyes  with 
happiness,  and  the  old  man,  on  being  acquainted 
by  her,  at  once  waved  his  handkerchief  at  me 
with  a  merry  smile.  But  to  keep  company  with 
them  now  seemed  to  me  wholly  beneath  my  dig- 
[142] 


nity,  and  so  I  jumped  into  the  cab  in  a  sort  of 
flight. 

"Drive  me  to  Hansen's  restaurant,"  I  ordered 
the  driver. 


[143] 


XLIX 

Several  days  have  passed  during  which  I  have 
not  written  any  of  these  recollections  of  mine. 
Well,  there  is  no  hurry.  The  weather  has  been 
fine,  and  I  could  take  beautiful  walks,  or  I  might 
better  say  journeys,  to  Erdmannsdorf,  through 
the  old  park  of  Buchwald,  and  over  to  town  or  the 
little  Schmiedeberg.  My  family  can  run  the 
little  shop  and  the  little  farm,  with  its  few  chick- 
ens and  several  goats,  almost  without  my  help, 
and  they  like  me  to  have  all  the  leisure  I  can.  As 
an  experienced  clerk,  the  book-keeping  and  the 
correspondence  of  our  little  business  cost  me  little 
time  and  effort.  I  can  do  that  with  my  left  hand, 
so  to  speak. 

I  purposely  wanted  to  pause  and  reflect  for  a 
few  days,  really  to  divert  my  thoughts,  before 
I  proceed  to  render  myself  an  account  of  my  mo- 
mentous relations  with  Melitta. 

The  little  one  was  sitting  with  her  mother,  the 
so-called  baroness,  at  a  side-table  in  that  same 
fashionable  restaurant  which  I  had  named  to  the 
cabby  before  I  got  into  his  cab,  probably  chiefly 
for  the  sake  of  impressing  the  passers-by. 

[144] 


You  will  recall  the  excited  condition  into 
which  I  had  got  myself  after  leaving  the  Harlans' 
house. 

In  reality  I  was  astonished  and  had  to  bethink 
myself  a  little,  as  the  cab  actually  stood  still 
before  the  plate  glass  windows  of  Hansen's  res- 
taurant. 

Even  Vigottschinsky  had  never  ventured  into 
this  most  fashionable  and  most  famous  restaurant 
in  town. 

As  for  me,  such  a  step  had  been  heretofore  the 
very  last  thing  to  be  thought  of,  because  I  had 
never  yet  got  rid  of  my  vague  feeling  of  being  an 
outcast.  Suddenly  I  had  got  into  this  Eldorado 
of  all  epicures,  without  knowing  how. 

I  do  think  that  for  the  first  moments  I  conduc- 
ted myself  fairly  well;  but  I  had  difficulty  in 
facing  the  glances  of  the  guests  without  confusion. 
To  the  left  of  the  entrance  of  the  long  restaurant 
were  sitting  cadets  and  officers  of  the  royal  Bres- 
lau cuirassiers.  Handsome  men,  tall,  slender 
figures,  rich,  aristocratic  lads,  every  one  of  them 
belonging  to  some  noble  old  family.  They  had 
the  condescension,  it  seemed,  to  stoop  to  this  re- 
sort, which  common  people  were  also  allowed  to 

[145] 


frequent.  The  other  tables  showed  faces  of  men 
mostly  of  mature  age,  which  simply  could  not 
fail  to  inspire  respect.  Surely  many  of  them, 
physicians,  professors,  city  councilors,  bore  the 
most  resounding  names  in  town.  I  distinctly 
heard  someone  called  Your  Highness.  Yes,  and 
there  was  sitting  in  a  discreet  alcove  in  the  uni- 
form of  a  general,  in  distinguished  isolation,  the 
Duke  of  Ratibor,  who  as  commandant  of  Breslau 
was  a  well-known  figure.  Somehow  too  I  thought 
of  police  and  presiding  judges  and  similar  high 
officials,  in  the  light  of  several  glances  whose 
cross-fire  I  had  to  stand.  No,  it  was  no  enviable 
moment  when  I  stepped  into  that  restaurant,  and 
I  should  not  care  to  live  through  it  again. 

It  should  have  brought  me  to  my  senses. 

And  in  the  presence  of  all  these  persons  of  rank 
I  actually  did  come  to  my  senses,  in  a  way.  But 
when  I  had  been  shown  with  exquisite  politeness 
to  a  table  all  by  myself,  and  had  sat  down  at  it, 
I  found  myself  reassured  by  the  thought  of  hav- 
ing enough  money  in  my  pocket  to  pay  my  bill, 
and  of  owing  it  to  nobody  in  this  circle,  but  at 
most  to  my  aunt.  And  besides,  I  was  a  free  man 
and  no  longer  a  clerk  at  the  city's  mercy. 

[146] 


Quite  certainly,  however,  it  was  a  strange 
thing  that  a  little  despised  starveling  could  dine 
table  to  table  with  the  highest  officials  of  the  city, 
the  province,  nay  even  of  the  state,  as  like  to 
like,  and  not  be  shown  the  door. 

Now  whether  it  was  to  give  myself  courage,  or 
to  put  myself  in  the  proper  light  here  at  the  out- 
set, or  in  my  treacherous  feeling  of  triumph- 
anyway,  I  immediately  ordered  champagne. 

Certainly,  the  luxury  of  the  fashionable  world 
includes  exquisite  enjoyments.  It  is  after  all  not 
surprising  if  one  who  has  learned  to  know  them, 
and  then  has  to  give  them  up,  turns  criminal  for 
the  sake  of  them.  This  was  probably  the  case 
with  Vigottschinsky.  Unbridled  sensuality  pos- 
sessed this  man,  talented  in  his  way,  and  even 
attractive  in  many  respects,  and  destroyed  him. 
This  danger  is  overcome  in  me. 

The  nourishing  soup,  the  delicious  fish,  the 
fragrant  roast,  the  game,  the  dessert,  and  last  but 
not  least  the  excessively  luscious  wine,  put  me 
into  a  very  satisfied  mood.  The  artificial  light, 
which  has  to  burn  all  the  time,  even  by  day,  in 
that  restaurant,  except  just  in  front  of  the  single 
plate-glass  window,  added  to  its  cosiness.  Then 
[147] 


there  is  also  the  darkening  veil  of  the  clouds  of 
smoke,  which  to  a  certain  degree  isolates  the  in- 
dividual guests  and  even  yourself.  You  seem  to 
yourself  to  be  in  a  hidden  cave,  in  a  hiding-place, 
and  you  feel  as  if  you  could  sin  with  less  interfer- 
ence. After  I  had  sat  there  half  an  hour,  I  felt 
as  if  I  had  been  taken  into  a  secret  society  in 
which  everyone  wished  his  neighbor  every  joy. 


[148] 


Melitta  was  sitting,  as  I  already  said,  with  her 
mother  at  a  sidetable.  The  girl  had  a  little  lap- 
dog  that  wore  a  tiny  bell  on  its  neck.  When 
Melitta  let  the  lap-dog  down  on  to  the  floor,  its 
leash  reached  just  far  enough  for  it  to  rest  its 
dainty  little  fore-paws  on  my  left  thigh.  Of 
course  I  made  friends  with  it. 

The  baroness  thanked  me  several  times  with  a 
faint  smile  for  this  friendliness.  Once  she  re- 
proved Melitta  in  an  amiably  reproachful  tone, 
because  the  gentleman — that  was  I — was  con- 
stantly being  annoyed  by  her  dog. 

Then  Melitta  looked  around  at  me. 

At  the  sight  of  her  face  a  sort  of  terror  must 
have  shone  through  my  expression,  visible  to  the 
baroness.  I  saw  how  she  lifted  her  eyebrows, 
as  if  in  question. 

And  I  was  actually  frightened,  because  Melitta 
to  my  thinking  resembled  Veronica  in  a  remark- 
able way. 

From  this  moment  a  wonderful  confusion  be- 
gan in  me,  whereby  in  a  mystic,  or  let  us  rather 

[149] 


say  abnormal,  manner  I  united  the  images  of  the 
two  girls. 

To  be  sure,  I  told  myself,  this  girl  is  not  really 
Veronica,  but  Veronica  is  giving  me  a  sign  through 
her,  is  using  her  to  get  into  communication  with 
me. 

This  idea  took  shape  like  a  flash  and  possessed 
me  from  then  on  like  a  perception  of  the  highest 
truth. 

Melitta  seemed  to  be  Veronica's  age.  I  found 
out  later,  to  be  sure,  that  she  was  considerably 
older,  but  still  I  could  never  really  convince  my- 
self of  it.  Now  whether  it  was  her  clothes,  or 
whether  her  growth  had  been  retarded,  she  had 
for  me  something  absolutely  childlike.  She  wore 
Veronica's  loose  blond  hair,  falling  in  glorious 
long  waves.  Her  eyes  were  brown,  her  dainty 
little  nose  was  tilted  the  least  little  bit  at  the  very 
tip.  And  the  way  she  moved  that  tip,  when  she 
spoke  with  what  I  might  call  the  mouth  of  a 
suckling,  had  an  especial  charm  for  me. 

It  was  evident  that  she  was  the  object  of  con- 
versation at  the  table  of  the  cuirassiers.  But 
however  the  looks  of  the  gentlemen  strayed  over 

[150] 


the  table  of  the  baroness,  the  little  one  seemed 
insensible  of  them,  and  one  could  clearly  see  that 
she  returned  none  of  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  she  did  reveal  an  outspoken 
interest  in  me,  strange  to  say. 

This  fact  surprised  me  on  the  one  hand,  but 
was  at  once  brought  into  connection  with  my  new 
fixed  idea,  whereby  it  was  made  to  seem,  on  the 
other  hand,  not  particularly  remarkable.  My 
mania,  which  was  giving  me  the  delusion  of  a 
supernatural  concatenation,  turned  the  striking 
behavior  of  the  child  toward  me  into  something 
that  was  quite  as  it  should  be.  And  only  that,  I 
mean  my  mystical  conception  of  the  matter,  gave 
me  the  courage  to  follow  it  up. 

To  anticipate  at  once:  Melitta  had  a  real 
affection  for  me.  I  have  a  number  of  proofs  of 
that.  How  that  was  possible  in  my  case,  who 
up  to  the  time  of  my  great  crisis  had  never  really 
ventured  to  count  on  such  an  experience,  is  un- 
certain. I  did  indeed  have  my  simple  and  even 
sober  friendship  with  Marie,  but  at  that  time  it 
was  not  to  be  mistaken  for  passionate  love  either 
on  my  side  or  on  hers. 

[151] 


Nor  did  the  affection  of  Melitta  for  me  ever 
rise,  I  suppose,  to  the  height  of  such  a  passion. 
Yet  for  this  girl  there  could  be  nothing  in  which 
love,  and  indeed  a  very  actual  love,  did  not  have 
a  part. 


[152] 


LI 


I  WILL  put  together  certain  traits  which  I  have 
arrived  at  by  reflection  and  which  make  some- 
what comprehensible  the  affection  of  Melitta  for 


me. 


She  was  the  strangest  specimen  of  the  genus 
Woman,  I  suppose,  that  there  could  ever  be  in 
the  world:  outwardly  a  childish  school-girl,  in- 
wardly of  unswerving,  mannish  independence. 
This  independence  was  the  same  both  in  thinking 
and  in  acting.  All  attempts  to  break  it  down— 
they  had  often  enough  been  made  by  her  mother — 
always  led  merely  to  the  same  failure. 

Never,  she  declared,  would  she  let  her  right 
to  love  be  starved.  She  told  her  mother  to 
her  face,  with  great  calm  and  firmness,  that  she 
intended  to  deny  herself  absolutely  nothing  in 
this  regard.  If  a  man  pleased  her  and  the  oppor- 
tunity could  be  found  at  all,  she  would  take  him. 
She  had  not  the  least  intention  of  going  out  of 
the  world,  without  once  having  enjoyed,  and 
enjoyed  to  the  full,  the  best  thing  in  life.  If 
anyone  tried  to  prevent  her,  let  him  look  out  for 
himself.  Whoever  did  that  would  be  her  enemy. 
[153] 


It  was  natural  to  hate  one's  enemies.  But  she 
was  capable  of  a  deadly  hatred  of  that  person 
who  should  try  to  rob  her  of  the  greatest  good  in 
life,  that  is,  of  nothing  less  than  life  itself. 

Nor  did  Melitta  merely  uphold  such  views 
with  her  tongue:  her  mother  could  tell  a  tale  or 
two  about  that. 

As  I  know  from  my  own  trial,  the  visits  of 
the  lawyers,  the  physicians,  and  the  clergyman 
in  the  prison,  and  from  my  own  private  reading 
in  my  cell,  there  is  such  a  thing  as  perversity. 
Melitta  had  perverse  leanings.  So  she  would 
often  say :  she  had  rather  die  than  have  anything 
to  do  with  one  of  those  dandified  dolls,  the  officers 
of  the  royal  cuirassiers.  Here  her  repugnance, 
her  utter  aversion  set  in,  whereas  an  ugly  and 
probably  filthy  old  fellow  could  make  a  strong 
impression  on  her.  The  baroness  told  me  that 
she  had  for  a  long  time  given  herself  quite  un- 
reservedly to  a  shock-haired,  gout-racked,  greasy 
old  cabaret-actor. 

So  perhaps  the  way  in  which  Melitta  swooped 
down  upon  me  at  first  sight,  as  they  say,  is  to  be 
ascribed  to  perversity. 

To  be  sure  there  may  also  have  been  involved 

[154] 


in  it  some  sign-language  between  mother  and 
daughter,  with  reference  to  the  snaring  of  simple- 
tons. A  free  life  was  the  prevalent  practice  with 
them,  without  disagreement,  only  that  the  mother 
wished  to  spend  it  in  a  well-considered,  well- 
applied,  purposeful  manner,  whereas  this  was  a 
secondary  consideration  for  the  daughter. 

Well,  all  one,  even  through  my  narcotic  fog  I 
perceived  what  manner  of  persons  I  had  run  into 
the  arms  of.  And  after  the  dog  had  given  rise 
to  an  informal  conversation,  I  quietly  made  bold 
to  settle  the  ladies'  bill  together  with  my  own. 

I  do  not  know  how  they  had  found  out  about 
this  circumstance,  but  at  any  rate  they  rose  soon 
after,  to  leave  the  restaurant  in  silence,  with  a 
significant,  suggestive  smile  and  a  nod  of  the  head 
at  me. 

Needless  to  say  that  in  two  minutes  I  too  was 
on  the  street  and  at  their  side. 


[iSSl 


LH 

One  can  imagine  how  complicated  my  circum- 
stances had  become  when  in  less  than  twenty-four 
hours — Melitta  hardly  gave  me  that  much  time — 
I  had  entered  into  a  fixed  liaison  with  her.  The 
sweet  and  utterly  depraved  child  was  my  precep- 
tress in  the  art  of  love.  As  my  aunt  had  put  the 
capital  expressly  into  my  hands  and  not  into  those 
of  Vigottschinsky,  I  gave  him  substantial  amounts 
of  it,  but  kept  the  lion's  share  ^  for  myself.  This 
melted  away  at  a  furious  pace. 

As  I  did  not  wish  to  betray  my  relations  with 
Melitta  to  Vigottschinsky  and  my  sister,  yet  they 
could  not  help  seeing  that  an  estrangement  had 
come  between  us,  I  was  again  forced  to  take  refuge 
in  lying.  It  was  perhaps  -a  good  thing  that 
Vigottschinsky's  sagacity  soon  got  on  my  trail 
and  thus  took  this  burden  off  me.  He  took  it  as 
a  matter  of  course  that  I  too  had  now  given  up  my 
narrow-minded  ideas  about  love  and  had  pro- 
ceeded to  action. 

As  for  him,  the  investigation  later  on  showed 

^Translator's  note.    The   lion's  share    (see  ^sop)    was  the 
whole.    Hauptmann  seeras  to  have  fallen  into  a  common  error. 

[156] 


that  excesses  of  every  sort  had  become  second 
nature  to  him.  At  that  time,  although  his  re- 
lations with  my  sister  were  just  at  their  zenith, 
he  managed  just  the  same  to  find  time  for  deceiv- 
ing her  with  other  women.  My  sister  did  not 
dream  of  this  at  first,  but  later  he  no  longer  made 
a  secret  of  it.  His  shameless  frankness,  how- 
ever, only  seemed  to  intensify  her  love.  At  least 
she  acceded  to  his  lightest  wish  with  a  doglike 
servility. 

When  I  recovered  my  sister  in  that  night- 
resort,  her  conduct  as  compared  with  formerly 
had  become  finer»  even  ladylike.  It  was  Vigott- 
schinsky  who  really  made  a  harlot  of  her. 

He  carried  photographs  around  with  him, 
mostly  unspeakably  vile  little  ones  in  series, 
which  disgusted  me,  and  would  spread  them  out 
before  us  with  cynical  laughter.  He  had  got 
them  from  sailors,  he  said,  who  had  brought  them 
along  from  Port  Said  or  other  international  dens 
of  vice.  His  speech  teemed  with  obscenities. 
He  never  thought  of  taking  my  sister  any  more 
to  resorts  like  the  one  in  which  we  had  found  her. 
Instead  he  dragged  her  around  among  the  very 
meanest  gin-shops,  where  women  waited  on  table, 

[157] 


and  where  the  dregs  of  humanity  gave  itself  up 
to  the  beastliest  orgies.  Before  I  came  to  know 
Melitta,  he  and  I  had  taken  several,  I  suppose, 
of  those  so-called  beer-journeys  by  night  from  one 
ale-house  to  another,  but  never  without  my  being 
thoroughly  ashamed  of  myself  afterward  in  con- 
sideration of  my  ideal,  Veronica. 


[158] 


LIII 

Had  I  not  been  so  taken  up  by  my  affair  with 
Melitta,  I  might  perhaps  have  prevented  Vigott- 
schinsky  from  dragging  my  sister  so  completely 
down  to  destruction  with  him.  Left  alone  with 
her,  the  scoundrel  had  an  easy  time  of  it  in  this 
regard.  In  the  first  weeks  I  did  not  dream  of  the 
obscure,  subterranean  ways  that  he  was  wont  to 
walk  with  her.  When  in  the  blackest  night  of 
my  life  I  recognized  how  deep  she  had  sunk,  a 
horror  came  upon  me,  as  I  distinctly  recall.  I 
saw  no  reason  why  I  should  have  failed  to  observe 
through  what  a  terrible  school  she  had  mean- 
while been  taken  by  that  blackguard.  What 
had  become  of  my  sister,  frivolous  indeed  and  all- 
too-hungry  for  life,  but  fundamentally  always 
straight  and  outspoken  and  strong  of  will? 

He  dragged  her  with  him  through  every  gutter 
and  puddle,  through  every  rubbish-pile  and  gar- 
bage-heap. He  introduced  her  into  his  circles, 
those  of  the  obscurest  of  all  "men  of  honor,"  and 
domiciled  her  there,  sold  her  favors  or  used  them 
as  his  stakes  in  three-card  monte.  And  if  the 
poor  girl  ever  rebelled,  his  fists  broke  her  resist- 

[159] 


ance.  Finally  she  had  lost  all  power  of  rebel- 
lion, as  the  force  of  vice  had  completed  her 
subjugation.  She  could  no  longer  do  without  the 
smell  of  fusel  brandy,  the  rowdy ish  delirium,  the 
bestial  enjoyments  of  the  vice-dens.  Before 
the  crime  against  Aunt  Schwab  was  committed, 
nay  even  before  it  was  planned,  she  had  already 
"turned  a  trick"  *  now  and  then,  as  the  rogues' 
cant  puts  it,  and  this  came  out  in  the  subsequent 
investigation.  She  confessed  to  me  that  several 
times  she  had  had  to  lure  gentlemen  into  definite 
quarters,  so  that  Vigottschinsky's  political  parti- 
sans— he  draped  his  basest  crimes  with  the  mantle 
of  politics — could  the  more  easily  rob  them. 
She  had  stagged  ^  and  furnished  other  kinds  of 
mechanical  assistance  in  all  sorts  of  crimes. 

I  must  not  anticipate  and  not  digress. 

The  day  on  which  I  had  made  my  insane 
marriage-proposal  in  the  Harlans'  house,  had 
subsequently  dined  and  drunk  champagne  in 
Hansen's  restaurant,  and  had  finally  been  taken 
home  with  the  baroness  and  her  daughter,  to 
awake  the  following  morning  in  Melitta's  arms 

1  Translator's  note.     To  carry  out  a  theft. 

2  Translator's  note.     Thieves'  cant:  to  stand  sentry. 

[160] 


—that  day,  I  say,  had  not  only  torn  me  com- 
pletely loose  from  the  solid  ground  of  my  former 
life,  but  had  finally  silenced  the  voice  of  reason 
within  me.  From  now  on  I  lived  in  a  world 
which  no  longer  had  the  slightest  element  in 
common  with  that  in  which  I  had  formerly  ex- 
isted. Indeed,  it  had  nothing  in  common  with 
any  real  world.  I  confess,  however,  that  it  was 
full  of  new  and  intoxicating  sensations,  and  that 
it  conjured  up  about  me  unspeakably  glorious 
phantasmagoria. 


[161] 


LIV 

I  HAVE  just  been  paging  through  my  manu- 
script and  feel  that  it  is  time  to  speak  again  of  my 
poor,  honest  mother. 

I  was  still  inhabiting  my  old  little  room,  that  is 
I  still  used  it  to  sleep  in.  But  to  be  sure  very 
irregularly  in  every  respect,  as  I  mostly  came 
home  towards  morning  and  spent  some  entire 
nights  every  week  in  the  apartment  of  the  baron- 
ess. 

My  mother  still  had  towards  me  the  respectful 
attitude  that  was  based  on  my  former  exemplary 
life.  She  still  saw  or  wanted  to  see  in  me  the 
good  son,  the  rock  on  which  she  could  confidently 
erect  the  secure  asylum  of  her  old  age. 

Of  Veronica  Harlan  she  knew  nothing,  of 
Melitta  as  little,  as  she  had  no  social  intercourse, 
hardly  ever  stepped  over  the  door-sill,  and  only 
ran  the  most  indispensable  errands  to  the  baker 
or  butcher,  or  into  the  nearest  dry-goods  store. 
Marie,  my  present  wife,  visited  her  now  and  then. 
But  neither  Marie  nor  her  father  knew  at  that 
time  any  more  about  me  than  my  mother  did. 

The  disappointments  of  my  mother's  life  had 

[162] 


caused  her  to  shun  the  world.  She  never  went 
to  see  other  people,  and  when  Marie  or  perhaps 
her  neighbor  across  the  corridor  succeeded  in 
disturbing  her  in  her  hiding-place,  she  never  dis- 
avowed her  preference  for  seclusion.  Even  if 
there  had  been  people  who  knew  about  everything 
that  I  was  doing,  and  if  they  had  told  her,  she 
would  not  have  believed  it,  indeed  she  would  in 
all  probability  have  rebuffed  even  the  attempt  to 
make  such  a  revelation. 

The  transformation  which  she  observed  in  me, 
and  which  she  could  not  explain  to  herself,  she 
interpreted  as  sickness,  I  am  certain  of  that. 
Hence  it  never  occurred  to  her  to  lecture  me  on 
moral  grounds.  She  seemed  to  be  totally  incapa- 
ble of  that,  as  far  as  I  was  concerned.  She 
always  merely  cast  troubled  looks  at  me,  and  I 
evaded  them  when  I  could,  since  they  were  the 
only  thing  that  made  me  uncertain  in  what  might 
be  called  my  ecstatic  gymnastics  on  the  tight- 
rope. 

My  mother  is  dead.  It  was  grief  that  put  her 
under  the  sod.  I  am  certain  of  that,  although 
the  physician  told  me  for  my  consolation  that  she 
had  lived  her  life  out  to  its  furthest  limit.     Her 

[163] 


organs  were  worn  out,  the  examination  had  dis- 
closed. But  what  have  I  said  as  to  the  part 
played  by  grief  as  a  grave-digger*?  It  was  not 
grief  nor  worn-out  organs,  it  was  the  pitiless  and 
brutal  blows  that  destiny  dealt  her  heart  which 
caused  her  death. 

And  I  may  say  that  I  never  returned  to  the  old 
dwelling  without  feeling  that  I  was  going  into 
a  mouldering  grave.  I  could  just  as  well  call 
it  a  coffin.  It  was  the  coffin  in  which,  as  it  seemed 
to  me  then,  I  lay  buried  alive  for  many  long  and 
horrible  years. 


[164] 


LV 

My  mother,  I  said,  took  me  to  be  sick.  After 
her  death  they  brought  to  me  in  prison  a  letter 
which  had  been  found  in  the  drawer  of  her  sew- 
ing-table.    It  was  very  long  and  addressed  to  me. 

It  transpired  from  this  letter  that  she  had  for 
a  time  thought  me  demented,  but  hoped  that  I 
would  some  day  recover  and  be  wholly  myself 
again.  She  had  experienced  something  similar 
many  years  before  with  one  of  her  brothers. 

The  baroness  and  her  daughter  sucked  the  life- 
blood  out  of  me.  The  girl  was  without  doubt  a 
consumptive.  Either  she  infected  me,  or  else, 
which  is  more  probable,  I  had  likewise  been  carry- 
ing the  germs  of  that  disease  in  my  system.  At 
any  rate,  I  was  in  the  hospital  during  almost  the 
entire  period  of  the  trial,  since  I  took  to  my  bed 
shortly  after  my  arrest  with  pulmonary  catarrh 
and  a  fever  of  104  degrees. 

Melitta  always  had  a  slight  fever,  probably 
without  knowing  it.  I  suppose  that  caused  the 
shine  in  her  eyes,  the  purple  patches  on  her  cheeks, 
and  her  burning,  insatiable  mouth. 

From  this  malady  and  this  internal  fever  prob- 

[165] 


ably  arose  also  her  blazing,  unquenchable  sen- 
suality, which  made  her  favors  as  intoxicating 
as  they  were  depraving.  She  had  completely 
enslaved  me. 

Melitta  ate  little,  and  never  any  meat.  She 
neither  drank  nor  smoked;  otherwise,  she  said, 
the  fine  sensitivity  of  her  nerves  would  be  blunted, 
which  involved  for  her  the  highest  delights  of 
life.  What  self-denial  with  so  much  lack  of 
moderation  I  And  yet  she  was  good  and  said  she 
loved  me  because  I  was  so  good. 

Melitta  asserted  that  she  would  soon  die.  She 
.is  living  to-day,  but  has  disappeared  from  Bres- 
lau. They  say  she  went  somewhere  in  the  South. 
Some  said  that  a  rich  Brazilian  had  traveled  after 
her  for  a  long  time  and  had  hanged  himself  on 
the  door-knob  of  her  hotel-room,  because  she  re- 
mained cold  to  him.  The  fact  was  that  she  liked 
almost  anybody.  Age,  class,  or  other  advantages 
or  defects  made  no  difference.  The  red  coats, 
it  is  true,  were  repulsive  to  her,  and  when  she  dis- 
liked somebody,  she  disliked  him,  and  he  got  no- 
where with  her,  even  though  he  squandered  mil- 
lions over  night. 

Let  no  one  think  that  I  reveled  in  the  posses- 

[166] 


sion  of  her  in  a  simple,  natural  manner.  As  I 
have  said,  the  thought  of  Veronica  and  her  image 
did  not  forsake  me  even  in  Melitta's  arms.  We 
have  lain  awake  in  close  embrace  for  entire  nights, 
and  it  not  infrequently  happened  that  I  would 
dissolve  in  sentimental  tears  and  confess  to 
Melitta  the  cause  of  my  unhappiness.  She  ex- 
pressed anything  but  jealousy.  She  rather 
clasped  me  the  more  wildly  and  tenderly.  "I 
do  not  love  happy  people,"  she  said,  "I  love  only 
the  unhappy  ones.  The  more  you  suffer,  the 
more  ardently  I  yearn  to  comfort  you.  If  it  does 
you  good  and  eases  your  pain,"  she  would  often 
say,  "then  close  your  eyes  and  imagine  that  you 
are  holding  the  other  in  your  embrace." 

She  did  not  know  the  delusion  that  always  en- 
raptured and  tormented  me  in  her  embrace: 
namely  that  in  some  way  she  was  a  greeting,  a 
part,  a  mystic  emissary  of  Veronica  Harlan. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  summer  Vigottschin- 
sky  and  I  had  to  meet  for  a  conference.  The 
money  of  my  aunt  was  spent,  and  we  had  to  de- 
cide how  we  should  coax  more  out  of  her.     Such 


an  attempt  was  not  easy 
v'e  w 

[167] 


For  a  long  time  we  were  of  two  minds  as  to 


the  sum  to  be  extorted,  of  which  each  of  us  this 
time  was  to  administer  (as  Vigottschinsky  called 
it)  exactly  one  half,  for  he  insisted  on  that.  As 
I  needed  him  and  feared  I  might  otherwise  lose 
his  aid — I  felt  that  he  had  me  in  his  power  to 
some  extent  with  respect  to  my  aunt — I  had  to 
consent  to  this  arrangement.  He  proposed  a 
sum  that  was  twice  and  three  times  the  one  we 
had  squandered. 

I  still  remained  timid,  although  I  needed  the 
money  more  than  he  did,  since  I  had  paid  all 
sorts  of  large  and  small  bills  for  the  baroness  and 
her  daughter,  and  had  even  got  into  debt.  Gold 
ornaments  which  I  had  bought  for  the  little  one 
I  had  already  had  to  pawn  secretly  to  Aunt 
Schwab,  as  if  I  had  got  them  from  a  friend.  The 
baroness  gave  me  to  understand,  Melitta  never, 
that  I  was  either  solvent,  and  then  I  must  prove 
it  with  clinking  coin,  or  else,  as  she  ironically  put 
it,  I  must  seek  out  another  sphere  of  action.  She 
must  live,  must  provide  for  her  daughter,  think  of 
her   future,   and  besides — nothing   for  nothing. 

We  had  given  up  in  our  private  talks  the  fiction 
that  we  were  still  trying  to  get  business  capital. 
This  was  strange  in  view  of  my  general  high-flown 

[168] 


airs.  I  probably  viewed  this  matter  so  dispas- 
sionately because  the  knife  was  at  my  throat.  I 
could  detect  that  my  friend  had  previously  only 
pretended  that  he  believed  in  my  poetic  fame  and 
my  matrimonial  prospects.  What  I  had  done 
and  attained  in  the  meantime  made  me  appear  in 
his  eyes  less  idiotic  than  artful.  He  left  me  in 
no  doubt  of  this.  But  I  had  no  desire  to  initiate 
him  into  my  mysteries. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  social  cloak  in 
which  he  liked  to  drape  himself.  He  had  contin- 
ued to  perform  certain  services  for  Aunt  Schwab, 
even  though  less  consistently,  and  gave  me  to 
understand  that  in  this  way  he  could  withdraw 
from  the  entire  affair,  if  he  chose,  and  leave  me 
in  the  lurch.  But  all  the  same  he  hated  my 
aunt.  I  was  horrified  to  see  in  what  an  implac- 
able form  this  came  to  light  while  we  were  forg- 
ing our  new  plans.  But  he  draped  his  social 
cloak  about  this  too. 

My  accomplice  declared  that  he  was  an  anar- 
chist, and  that  he  approved  of  any  and  every 
means  of  depriving  the  bourgeoisie  of  their  plun- 
der. He  had  vowed  war  to  the  knife  against  the 
exploiting   state,    against   capitalism.     Property 

[.69] 


was  robbery,  he  maintained,  and  there  was  the 
greatest  merit  in  robbing  a  band  of  thieves.  If 
one  theft  succeeded,  then  at  least  for  once  justice 
would  be  satisfied  in  detail  and  in  particular. 

But  now  especially  one  must  regard  women 
like  Aunt  Schwab  as  cancerous  sores  on  the  body 
of  humankind.  He  called  her  a  blood-sucker, 
called  her  an  old  hyena,  who  lay  in  wait  for 
those  mortally  wounded  in  the  social  struggle  and 
fell  upon  their  dying  bodies,  in  order  to  fatten 
on  their  carrion.  And  he  called  her  a  disgusting 
old  vulture,  who  stank  of  her  nauseating  trade 
a  mile  away  and  sat  in  her  dwelling  like  that 
carcass-eating  bird  among  the  clean-picked  bones 
of  a  fallen  beef. 

So  tremendous  was  Vigottschinsky's  hatred, 
so  immoderate  and  wild  his  fury,  that  I  was  unfor- 
tunately carried  along  into  its  maelstrom  to  a 
certain  degree — remember  the  hatred  and  despite 
that  my  mother  felt  towards  her  sister. 

So  then  the  new  swindle  was  thought  out  be- 
tween us  to  the  last  detail,  and  fully  "planted," 
as  the  phrase  is. 


[170] 


LVI 

To  be  brief,  this  stroke  succeeded  too. 

It  could  only  succeed  because  the  usurious  old 
witch,  as  mother  called  her,  had  still  not  lost  her 
blind  confidence  in  me.  To  be  sure,  we  had  gone 
to  work  with  unexampled  cunning,  too.  Vigot- 
tschinsky's  liaison  with  my  sister  and  his  tenacious 
plans  with  regard  to  my  person  had  caused  him 
to  utilize  his  intimacy  with  my  aunt  in  confirming 
her  confidence  in  my  honesty,  my  caution,  my 
business  judgment.  And  he  had  also  undertaken 
to  prepare  her  for  the  coming  blood-letting  sim- 
ply by  a  shrewdly  devised  fabric  of  lies  with 
respect  to  my  business  successes  and  by  admiring 
eulogies  of  my  character.  It  is  honestly  true  that 
we  subsequently  sat  over  our  wine  and  laughed 
like  fools  at  this  base  and  scoundrelly  trick,  and 
especially  at  the  role  of  demi-god  which  he  had 
had  me  play,  while  he  had  depreciated  himself  in 
every  way  and  even  left  himself  out  of  the  reckon- 
ing, in  order  to  give  more  weight  to  me. 

We  got  from  Aunt  Schwab  a  certain  hundred- 
per-cent-earning  industrial  stock,  which  I  pro- 
mised her  that  she  would  get  back  untouched,  as 

[>7i] 


I  merely  wished  to  deposit  it  at  my  bank  as  secur- 
ity, and  for  three  months  at  the  most. 

In  less  than  six  weeks  this  new  money  had  run 
off  through  the  same  channels  as  before,  and  we 
were  just  about  to  plan  another  stroke,  come  what 
might,  when  Aunt  Schwab  all  at  once  awoke  from 
her  pipe-dream. 

One  day  I  came  home  and  learned  that  she  had 
been  at  my  mother's.  It  was  the  first  time  in  a 
decade  that  this  had  happened.  I  cannot  say 
what  took  place  then  between  the  two  estranged 
sisters.  I  did  indeed  find  my  mother  pale  and 
agitated  and  with  trembling  lips;  but  she  would 
not  give  me  any  disclosure  of  importance.  She 
merely  fixed  upon  me  her  old,  grieved,  and  sadly 
questioning  glance,  perhaps  with  less  timidity 
than  usual. 

In  a  letter  she  had  left  behind  my  aunt  asked 
me  to  come  to  her. 

Now  there  did  come  over  me  a  sort  of  reali- 
zation, which  increased  to  consternation. 

I  had  already  been  living  during  the  last  weeks 

as  if  under  the  pressure  of  an  ever  more  darkly 

lowering  cloud.     Moments  of  clearness  showed 

me  to   what   dangerous   cliffs  and  precipices   I 

[172] 


had  rashly  climbed.  The  burden  of  my  cares 
grew  and  oppressed  me.  I  not  infrequently  cried 
out  in  the  night  and  awoke  bathed  in  perspiration. 
I  sought  consolation  in  religion  and  felt  springing 
up  in  me  the  desire  to  be  able  to  renounce  the 
world,  to  spend  the  rest  of  my  days  behind  the 
walls  of  a  monastery.  I  was  a  Protestant  and 
considered  conversion  to  Catholicism,  since  the 
old  spacious  Roman  church  seemed  the  most 
likely  to  afford  me  an  asylum.  A  deep  weariness 
came  over  me.  It  was  a  weariness  of  life  of  the 
sort  that  craves  nothing  but  rest  and  peace,  and 
fears  any  resurrection  as  merely  a  new  hardship. 
I  had  at  this  time  already  laid  out  Veronica's  body 
in  my  heart  like  a  beautiful  corpse.  My  soul 
was  as  it  were  draped  in  black.  The  catafalque 
stood  in  the  midst  of  it,  covered  with  flowers, 
and  with  lighted  candles  around  it.  But  the 
room  seemed  to  derive  its  light  not  from  the 
candles,  but  from  the  unearthly  glory  of  the 
beauty  of  my  dead  beloved.  With  this  image  in 
my  soul  I  wanted  to  go  out  like  a  candle,  and  as 
I  have  said  with  no  anticipation  of  a  resurrection. 
Of  course  there  were  other  moods,  too.  When 
less  exhausted  physically,  I  had  supermundane 

[173] 


hopes  that  burst  through  my  surfeit  of  life.  I 
saw  myself  then  in  the  sphere  of  Veronica,  who 
had  become  a  seraph,  and  God  had  allowed  me 
to  feast  myself  to  all  eternity  solely  on  the 
splendor  of  her  beauty. 

In  my  first  consternation  I  went  to  look  for 
Vigottschinsky.  We  considered  what  was  to  be 
done. 

First  we  must  find  out  how  much  information 
my  aunt  had  of  our  doings,  or  whether  she  per- 
haps had  only  a  vague  suspicion.  Hence  we  were 
agreed  that  I  must  take  the  disagreeable  step  of 
going  to  Aunt  Schwab  without  delay.  "For," 
said  my  pretty  friend,  as  he  urged  me  to  haste  in 
noticeable  anxiety,  "she  would  be  capable,  in  her 
first  alarm,  of  turning  us  over  to  the  prosecutor 
without  a  word." 


[174] 


LVII 

Aunt  Schwab  had  opened  the  door  for  me 
herself  when  the  faint  tinkle  of  the  tinny  bell  had 
died  away.  She  did  not  speak  to  me,  and  let  me 
step  into  her  parlor  in  silence. 

The  red  plush  sofa  squeaked  as  she  sat  down 
on  it. 

Now  I  spoke  my  first  ''Good  evening,"  and 
asked,  for  it  was  already  growing  dark,  whether 
I  should  light  the  lamp. 

But  there  was  no  answer.  Nor  did  my  aunt 
ask  me  to  take  a  seat. 

A  dray  rumbled  over  the  pavement  of  Heretic 
Hill.  The  canary  in  the  adjoining  room,  a 
triller  from  the  Harz,  made  a  last  effort  to  offer 
the  settmg  sun  his  customary  tribute  of  song. 
My  aunt  still  said  not  a  word. 

"You  sent  for  me,"  I  stammered,  "what  for?" 

Still  it  seemed  not  to  be  a  part  of  my  Aunt's 
plan  to  reply  to  me,  until  after  some  time  she 
finally  made  up  her  mind. 

Whereupon  she  said  these  words  distinctly  and 
clearly  with  a  firm  voice :     "Lorenz,  you  are  the 

[175] 


most  contemptible  scoundrel  I  ever  knew  in  my 
life." 

At  these  surprising  words  I  felt  as  if  the  knife 
of  a  surgeon  had  split  me  open  from  the  throat 
past  the  navel  and  down  through  all  my  intes- 
tines to  the  backbone.  Never  in  my  life  have 
I  felt  a  pain  like  it. 


[176] 


LVIII 

It  is  good  to  pause  a  little,  to  light  my  chilled 
pipe  again,  to  step  to  the  open  window,  to  listen 
to  the  finches  and  red-breasts,  and  to  tell  myself 
where  I  am,  before  I  go  on  with  my  confessions. 

I  have  now  done  that  to  the  full.  I  have 
saluted  the  doctor,  who  drove  by  on  the  street  in 
his  new  one-horse  rig — he  has  a  good  practice,  he 
can  afford  it — I  have  listened  to  the  talk  of  the 
children  who  are  bringing  berries  and  mushrooms 
which  they  want  to  sell  in  the  shop  below.  And 
I  have  breathed  in  the  odor  of  my  cabbage-roses, 
which  comes  up  to  me  out  of  the  front  garden. 
This  has  quieted  my  heart-beat.  It  means  a  great 
deal  to  me  to  be  clear-headed  and  cool  as  I  descend 
into  the  deepest  and  most  dangerous  shafts  of 
my  life,  into  their  infernal  passages  and  mazes, 
where  deadly  poisons  float  about  in  the  mine-gas. 
Can  there  be  a  greater  miracle  than  that  I  am  now 
enjoying  once  more  the  light  of  a  golden  day? 


[177] 


LIX 

So  Aunt  Schwab,  sitting  in  the  dim  light  on  her 
red  plush  sofa  and  looking  up  at  me,  her  idolized 
nephew,  had  said  these  words:  "You  are  the 
most  contemptible  scoundrel  I  ever  knew  in  my 
life."  And  I,  as  I  have  just  written,  felt  myself 
exposed  to  the  backbone  by  a  single  slash. 

At  this  moment  I  was  confirmed  in  the  reali- 
zation that  I  was  indeed  no  longer  worthy  of 
Veronica  and  must  treat  her  as  one  dead. 

Yet  my  heart  cried  out  for  her  in  this  terrible 
hour,  in  which  the  death-blow  was  being  delivered 
to  my  moral  personality.  Yes,  I  should  have 
died  blissful,  with  the  exultation  of  any  Chris- 
tian martyr,  if  I  might  have  made  her  understand, 
lying  at  her  feet,  that  like  a  moth  I  had  sought 
and  found  death  in  her  flame. 

Later  on  I  once  yielded  to  the  inward  impulse 
to  reveal  this  to  the  beautiful  child,  who  had 
never  even  so  much  as  exchanged  a  word  with 
me.     The  letter  came  back  unopened. 

There  can  be  no  thought,  however,  of  trying  to 
describe  the  storm  that  arose  in  me  at  my  aunt's 
words.     It  is  certain  that  before  I  allowed  the 

[178] 


first  word  of  my  answer  to  escape  from  my  lips  I 
had  regained  my  composure. 

I  felt  the  whole  seriousness  of  my  situation, 
and  was  resolved  to  leave  no  means  untried  to 
avoid  being  unmasked. 

The  direct  and  excessively  brutal  attack  of  my 
aunt  afforded  a  basis  for  my  defensive  tactics. 

«First  let  me  light  up,"  I  said,  and  proceeded 
to  do  so  without  undue  haste.  Then  I  continued, 
-There,  now  we  have  light,  and  now  we'll  look  at 
everything  in  the  light."  ^^ 

"You  know  I  am  no  friend  of  excitement, 
said  I,  as  she  was  about  to  burst  forth.  "If  I 
really  am  what  you  say,  then  our  getting  excited 
won't  change  it,  either.  By  the  way,  I  am 
thirsty,"  I  had  the  impudence  to  conclude,  "for 
you  know  I  don't  like  to  keep  you  waiting  when 
you  send  for  me,  so  I've  been  hurrying.  Perhaps 
you  might  give  me  a  bottle  of  beer." 

She  began  again;  "Lorenz,  you  are  the  most 
contemptible  scoun  ..." 

"Don't  take  any  more  trouble  at  all,"  I  mter- 

rupted  her,  "for  I  pay  no  attention  to  anything 

that  has  no  basis  in  reason,  and  if  you  are  gomg 

to  continue  like  that,  don't  be  surprised  if  I  reach 

[179] 


for  my  hat.     An  hour  will  surely  come  when  you 
are  in  a  better  humor." 

She  managed  to  pant,  "You  two  have  deceived 
me,  give  an  accounting."  She  wept.  She  could 
not  get  out  another  word. 

I  said  calmly,  "Who  has  betrayed  you*?  What 
'you  two'  do  you  mean*?" 

Of  course  the  details  of  the  conversation  are  no 
longer  in  my  memory.  At  any  rate,  I  knew  ulti- 
mately beyond  a  doubt  that  my  aunt,  probably 
through  her  police  commissioner,  was  pretty  well 
informed  about  our  actions. 

I  had  succeeded,  or  at  least  I  thought  so,  in 
making  plausible  to  her  a  certain  business  con- 
nection between  myself  and  the  baroness,  because 
the  latter  could  be  very  servicable  as  an  agent. 
The  liaison  with  her  daughter  was  denied  and 
roundly  declared  to  be  a  base  calumny.  Like- 
wise Vigottschinsky's  liaison  with  my  sister,  as 
that  infuriated  my  aunt  more  than  anything.  At 
the  same  time  I  gave  her  to  understand,  or  at  least 
pretended  to,  that  I  did  not  approve  of  her  own 
relations  with  Vigottschinsky.  The  mere  fact 
that  I  knew  of  them  embarrassed  her.  I  was  only 
acting   along   his   own    line    when   I    tried   to 

[180] 


strengthen  my  aunt's  confidence  in  me  by  ex- 
pressing my  doubts  of  Vigottschinsky's  character. 
I  went  further  and  said  that  his  name  could  not 
possibly  be  registered  as  partner  in  the  new  firm. 
So  much  had  become  clear  to  me  by  listening  here 
and  there,  I  said,  that  the  decent  commercial 
world  would  absolutely  reject  him.  At  times  it 
seemed  as  if  by  such  subterfuges  my  aunt  could  be 
made  to  change  her  mind  again  after  all,  and  be 
won  over  to  renewed  confidence  and  even  to  an 
apology.  I  got  my  beer  after  a  time,  yes  and  had 
to  share  her  supper.  But  I  kept  feeling  all  the 
time  that  the  peace  was  deceptive. 

The  speech  to  which  she  adhered  was  about  as 
follows:  "I  may  have  used  too  strong  an  expres- 
sion when  I  called  you  a  scoundrel.  It  may  be 
that  I  have  been  misled  by  gossip  and  calumnia- 
tion, and  that  the  business  you  are  doing  promises 
profit.  Today  is  Wednesday.  You  have  till 
Saturday.  Either  Melanie  and  you  will  appear 
Saturday  noon  at  twelve  o'clock  with  all  the  ac- 
counts of  your  business,  or  you  can  count  on  sit- 
ting behind  iron  bars  with  your  accomplices  on 
the  evening  of  that  same  day.  Let  the  baroness 
look  out  for  herself  too." 
[i8i] 


LX 

Until  daybreak  Vigottschinsky,  my  sister,  and 
I  held  a  council  of  war  in  our  so-called  office,  with 
wine  and  cigars.  At  about  half-past  nine  we 
heard  as  usual,  from  inside  the  theatre,  the  blank 
cartridges  of  the  great  Indian  attack.  The  great 
theatrical  hit,  "Around  the  world  in  eighty 
days,"  was  still  being  played.  The  ground  was 
rather  hot  under  us,  and  we  should  have  been 
glad  to  set  sail  for  the  new  world,  or  anywhere 
else. 

Our  situation  was  fairly  hopeless.  Not  be- 
cause we  had  no  account  books.  We  did  not 
think  that  my  aunt  would  immediately  deliver 
us  over  to  the  courts  on  that  account.  First  of 
all  Vigottschinsky  would  try  to  make  another  of 
his  attempts  at  reconciliation,  and  then  too  my 
aunt  had  reasons  for  being  very  reluctant  to  have 
dealings  with  the  courts.  No,  our  case  was  hope- 
less because  we  had  contracted  other  debts  and 
absolutely  needed  more  money,  without  any  pros- 
pect of  squeezing  a  single  additional  red  cent 
out  of  Aunt  Schwab. 

This  state  of  affairs  did  not  seem  to  find  Vigott- 

[182] 


schinsky  unprepared;  but  for  a  long  time  I  did 
not  know  where  to  turn.  I  thought  of  stringing 
myself  up,  but  I  could  not  even  think  the  thought 
of  crawling  back  into  my  cast-off  skin.  Rather 
die  than  admit  before  Melitta  and  her  mother 
so  pitiful  a  downfall.  And  anyway:  I  could 
die  and  thus  be  torn  from  Melitta.  But  I  was 
incapable  of  tearing  myself  away  from  her  while 
living,  from  the  enjoyments  and  ecstasies  that 
she  knew  how  to  give.  No,  if  the  worst  came  to 
the  worst,  I  should  perhaps  end  it  all  by  a  leap 
into  the  Oder.  Vigottschinsky,  as  I  say,  seemed 
to  have  reckoned  on  the  present  crisis  and  to  be 
closer  to  his  goal.  He  favored  my  aunt  with 
the  filthiest  expressions,  which  outdid  anything 
that  his  hatred  had  ever  achieved  in  this  direction 
before,  and  spared  no  means  of  egging  me  on  to 
a  like  hatred  of  her.  I  had  reported  to  him 
verbally  the  sentence  which  my  aunt  had  used 
to  greet  me  with,  and  this  sentence,  in  which  I 
was  branded  as  the  most  contemptible  scoundrel, 
was  indeed  well  suited  to  awaken  in  me  the  desire 
for  retaliation,  and,  put  to  good  account,  to  cause 
a  wild  feeling  of  revenge  to  flare  up  in  my  de- 
ranged mind. 

[183] 


LXI 

I  DID  not  see  Melitta  or  my  mother  on  the 
following  day;  for  my  sister,  Vigottschinsky,  and 
I  did  not  lose  sight  of  each  other.  Without  its 
being  said,  I  felt  that  there  was  something  wholly 
new  and  fearful  between  us,  whereby  we  were 
being  welded  together  in  an  unexampled  manner. 
It  seemed  quite  natural  to  me  that  we  should 
breakfast  in  an  out-of-the-way  basement  lunch, 
that  we  took  our  dinner  in  an  ill-lighted  den 
which  bordered  on  a  disreputable,  tumble-down 
tenement,  that  we  drank  Nordhausen  corn-whis- 
key with  it  and  at  evening  were  still  drinking 
corn-whiskey,  and  that  we  stayed  awake  all  that 
following  night,  or  at  most  slept  a  little  in  our 
clothes,  our  arms  resting  on  a  pot-house  table, 
our  foreheads  pillowed  on  the  backs  of  our  hands. 

In  all  that  I  had  so  far  seen  and  done  in  these 
two  nights  and  a  day  I  was  helpless,  in  the  main. 
We  were  drifting  as  it  were  on  a  resistlessly 
flowing  stream.  Vigottschinsky  steered  our  craft. 
Whither  was  he  steering  it,  what  goal  had  he 
chosen  for  the  journey?  A  vague  presentiment 
of  it  may  well  have  breathed  upon  me,  much  as 

[184] 


when  you  go  past  some  old  bit  of  masonry,  and 
from  a  basement  hole  the  chill  iron  and  mould- 
laden  breath  of  a  subterranean  torture-chamber 
makes  your  soul  shudder. 

I  lacked  any  power  to  take  the  rudder  from  the 
helmsman.  Or  to  jump  out  of  the  boat.  Either 
death  awaited  me  in  the  flood,  or  in  spite  of  my 
attempted  flight  I  should  in  the  end  be  drawn 
alive  into  the  wake  of  the  boat  and  so  be  carried 
along  to  its  fearful  goal. 

The  subsequent  testimony  of  Vigottschinsky 
decidedly   contested   my   passivity:    I   had   fre- 
quently behaved  wildly,  and  by  furious  pounding 
on  the  table  had  at  times  deadened  his  doubts 
and  his  conscience.     I   denied   this  before   the 
judge.     But  if  I  really  did  so,  then  probably  the 
unwonted     and     immoderate     consumption     of 
brandy  took  from  me  any  recollection  of  it.     I 
have  since  attempted  countless  times  over  to  re- 
call to  my  memory  those  fearful  nights  that 
preceded  the  crime,  and  truly  it  may  be  a  fact 
that  I  made  on  him  at  times  the  described  impres- 
sion.    One  and  another  trace  of  it  rises  dimly 
in  my  memory.     But  in  that  case   I  behaved 
noisily  in  order  to  disguise  my  inward  weakness, 
[>85] 


my  lack  of  the  "will  to  the  deed."  Perhaps  I 
willed  the  crime  without  wishing  it,  and  thought 
in  my  wretchedness  that  I  could  keep  my  hands 
clean  if  I  let  Vigottschinsky's  plans  take  their 
course. 

Upon  these  nights  followed  another  day.  On 
the  night  of  Friday  we  were  going  to  proceed  to 
the  execution.  In  these  three  nights,  without  any 
exaggeration,  my  hair  turned  gray. 

Even  on  the  evening  before  the  deed,  which 
was  carried  out  without  me,  I  was  wholly  apa- 
thetic. I  had  become  acquainted  with  all  sorts  of 
types  of  male  and  also  female  rogues,  and  had 
plunged  with  a  kind  of  suicidal  fury  into  the 
vortex  of  sensual  orgies.  Things  went  on  there, 
and  my  sister  even  participated  in  them,  than 
which  nothing  more  animal  or  satanic  can  be 
imagined,  and  the  recollection  of  which  still  cor- 
rodes my  soul  with  burning  stains.  Inextin- 
guishable, stinking  stains. 

When  I  took  leave  of  Vigottschinsky  on  the 
evening  before  the  crime,  after  we  had  agreed  on 
the  hour  and  place  where  he  was  to  pass  the 
plunder  on  to  me  for  his  greater  security,  I  hoped 
that  the  unendurable  tension  in  my  brain  would 

[186] 


soon  degenerate  into  madness.  And  when  instead 
of  this  I  subsequently  recovered  my  senses  in  a 
prison  cell,  that  too  was  a  great  blessing  to  me. 

My  aunt  was  to  be  robbed.  The  scrapp  ^ 
had  been  framed  by  a  practised  peter-man,  a 
rascally  friend  of  Vigottschinsky,  the  latter,  my 
sister,  and  myself.  I  use  these  terms  of  the 
rogues'  cant  because  they  became  familiar  to  me 
in  those  fearful  nights.  The  rogues  had  even 
initiated  me  into  their  guild  with  a  grotesque 
dance  and  a  baptism  of  corn-whiskey  under  the 
name  of  Crookleg.  In  the  opinion  of  the  experts 
the  "scrapp"  could  be  managed  without  difficulty. 
The  only  thing  was  not  to  have  just  the  worst 
kind  of  bad  luck. 

Of  course  there  was  no  idea  of  even  touching 
a  hair  of  the  victim's  head. 

The  whole  affair  went  off  exactly  in  accordance 
with  the  predetermined  plan.  Only  unfortu- 
nately it  was  overstepped  in  one  single  point, 
which  to  be  sure  cost  Vigottschinsky  his  life. 

Vigottschinsky  visited  my  aunt  on  the  basis 
of  his  former  but  now  somewhat  cooled  relations, 

^Translator's  note.    Thieves'  cant.     Scrapp=plan  of  robbery; 
frame=to  prepare;  peter=a  safe;  peter-man=safe-cracker. 

[187] 


to  which  however,  in  case  he  seriously  wanted  to 
do  so,  he  knew  how  to  give  the  old  warmth. 
He  was  bringing  my  aunt  good  news.  There 
was  awaiting  her,  he  said,  in  the  visit  of  myself 
and  my  sister  on  the  following  day  a  great  satis- 
faction. 

Aunt  kept  him  to  supper,  as  was  to  be  expected, 
they  drank  some  wine,  and  so  it  continued  ac- 
cording to  programme,  in  that  she  kept  the  rascal 
with  her  over  night.  The  latter  had  put  a  sleep- 
ing-draught into  her  last  glass  of  wine  just  before 
going  to  bed,  and  in  view  of  his  position  of  trust 
near  her,  it  was  easy  for  him,  even  if  she  should 
awake,  to  hold  her  attention  and  to  divert  her 
from  the  proceedings  in  the  adjoining  little  pawn- 
office.  It  was  a  feature  of  the  general  depravity 
in  the  nature  of  Vigottschinsky,  that  his  sensual 
impulses  shrank  from  nothing  when  it  was  a 
question  of  his  advantage. 

From  midnight  on  my  sister  had  to  "stag"  on 
Coppersmith  Street  in  the  rain.  Various  "high- 
balls," that  is  signs,  in  which  she  possessed  a  great 
skill,  had  been  agreed  upon  for  the  approaching 
"peter-man."  Also  she  was  a  past-mistress,  as 
her  darkness-loving  fellow-rogues  said,  in  the  arts 

[188] 


by  which  one  manages  to  divert  any  disturbance 
that  threatens,  and  to  entice  the  disturber  away 
from  the  scene  of  action.  I  am  convinced  that 
the  fabric  of  the  plan  was  of  long  preparation, 
for  everything  was  so  ingeniously  thought  out 
and  with  so  many  precautions. 

Soon  after  twelve  Vigottschinsky  opened  a  win- 
dow, and  when  the  watchman  had  passed  on  his 
rounds,  he  threw  down  on  the  pavement  for  my 
sister,  as  soon  as  she  stepped  out  of  the  shadow 
of  a  certain  gateway,  the  house-key  carefully 
wrapped  up  in  paper.  Melanie  picked  up  the 
key  and  walked,  at  'first  slowly,  then  faster  as 
soon  as  she  had  turned  into  a  side-alley,  on  a 
definite,  long,  labyrinthine  course,  leading  to  a 
pre-arranged  spot  where  she  handed  the  key  over 
to  the  "peter-man."  He  now  set  out  for  my 
aunt's  house,  whither  she  followed  him,  but  at  so 
great  a  distance  that  she  could  just  barely  keep 
him  in  sight.  She  walked  into  Coppersmith 
Street  at  the  very  instant  when  the  rogue  disap- 
peared in  my  aunt's  house. 


[189] 


LXII 

I  HAVE  often  wondered  why  Vigottschinsky 
did  not  want  to  carry  out  without  me  his  un- 
questionably long-cherished  plan.  He  was  better 
acquainted  with  my  aunt's  habits  than  I.  He 
knew  exactly  where  she  kept  her  cash,  certain 
valuable  papers,  and  her  jewelry,  also  where 
she  hid  the  keys  to  all  these  special  receptacles. 
He  had  made  my  aunt's  house  the  object  of  his 
close  scrutiny  in  the  course  of  several  years,  and 
knew  his  way  about  in  it  better  than  she  did. 
And  if  he  could  not  manage  the  mechanism  of 
the  fire-proof  safe,  I  certainly  could  not  do  any- 
thing for  him,  so  much  the  less  that  my  aunt 
never  let  anyone  come  near  that  steel  fortress. 
So  he  could  not  do  without  the  cracksman  and 
other  accomplices  of  the  rogues'  guild. 

Well  then:  what  use  had  he  for  me,  to  whom 
he  must  after  all  turn  over  a  goodly  portion  of 
the  plunder,  if  all  went  well"?  I  presume,  in  the 
first  place,  in  order  to  stiffen  his  own  back,  since 
he  was  probably  only  a  beginner  in  the  profession 
of  thief.  Out  of  the  honesty  and  stability  which 
he  saw  in  me  he  made  himself  the  firm  prop,  the 
[190] 


post  that  he  needed,  in  order  to  let  the  creepers  of 
his  criminal  ideas  twine  around  it.  Welcome  to 
him  was  moreover  my  combination  of  ingenuous- 
ness and  folly.  Such  a  fool  as  I,  if  rightly  used, 
one  might  perhaps  be  able  to  employ  as  a  dummy, 
or  to  pull  the  chestnuts  out  of  the  fire.  And  then 
it  would  ultimately  not  be  hard  to  cheat  him  out 
of  them  again,  without  even  having  burned  one's 
own  little  finger.  Then  let  him  perish,  covered 
with  burns.  But  who  can  genuinely  illuminate 
the  fine  and  complex  motives  of  the  soul*?  Of 
course  there  are  often  quite  inactive  persons  who 
are  only  capable  of  developing  their  energy'  by 
making  common  cause  with  others.  And  who 
knows  but  that  Vigottschinsky  just  simply  had  a 
fellow  feeling  for  me. 

The  plunder  was  to  be  handed  over  by  the 
cracksman,  since  Vigottschinsky  did  not  wish  to 
leave  the  house,  partly  to  my  "stagging"  sister, 
partly  to  a  certain  reliable  man  who  was  to  set 
off  with  it  to  Dresden  that  same  night.  My 
sister,  on  the  other  hand,  was  awaited  at  the 
Freiburg  station  by  a  so-called  officer's  widow, 
who  was  traveling  with  her  son  and  who  was  to 
receive  unobtrusively  my  sister's  part  of  the  plun- 

[191] 


der  and  carry  it  to  Berlin.  The  place  and  date  of 
the  so-called  "smack,"  that  is,  the  division  of  the 
spoils,  had  been  fixed  in  a  little  town,  upon  the 
punctual  observance  of  which  one  could  rely 
without  any  danger  of  defalcation,  according  to 
Vigottschinsky's  assurance,  in  view  of  the  honesty 
of  the  thieves  among  themselves. 

Vigottschinsky  believed  himself  capable  of 
watching  the  discovery  of  the  burglary,  on  awak- 
ing the  next  morning,  of  simulating  horror  and 
astonishment,  comforting  my  aunt,  and  encourag- 
ing her  in  the  hope  of  recovering  the  stolen  goods, 
of  notifying  the  police,  and  taking  the  first  steps 
for  the  discovery  of  the  thieves.  I  am  convinced 
that  his  impudence  was  equal  to  this  plan. 

In  that  night  cash  and  other  valuables  to  the 
amount  of  at  least  one  hundred  and  twenty  thou- 
sand marks  were  stolen  by  burglary  from  the 
pawn-shop  of  Helen  Schwab.  Of  this  entire 
plunder  very  little,  on  the  whole,  was  ever  seen 
again,  perhaps  a  gold  ring,  or  a  gold  watch  with 
a  monogram.  This  success,  however,  which  did 
no  good  to  either  Vigottschinsky  or  me,  was  only 
secured  by  a  hair's  breadth. 

At  the  door  of  the  old  house  of  which  the  pawn- 
[192] 


broker  occupied  the  second  story  there  was  a 
bell-pull  by  which  one  could  even  get  her  out  at 
night.  It  was  hers  to  decide  whether  she  regarded 
the  money-seeking  night-hawk  both  as  deserving 
of  confidence  and  as  a  sufficiently  juicy  morsel 
to  make  her  open  the  door  for  him.  Such  a 
night-hawk  my  sister  had  successfully  intercepted 
and  lured  into  a  dark  alley  by  means  of  her  charms 
and  feminine  wiles  of  every  sort. 

While  she  was  still  occupied  with  this  person, 
so  that  she  could  no  longer  keep  watch  on  the 
door,  the  bell  had  been  pulled  by  a  telegraph 
messenger,  who  was  looking  for  an  address  be- 
cause he  could  not  deliver  a  telegram.  Vigott- 
schinsky  was  immediately  down  at  the  door,  and 
soon  afterward  the  messenger  was  already  running 
off  along  the  house-fronts  in  pursuance  of  his  duty. 
But  my  aunt,  whom  Vigottschinsky  had  left 
asleep,  was  asleep  no  more ;  she  had  awaked,  and 
he  found  her  in  a  struggle  with  the  burglar. 


[193] 


LXIII 

I  SHOULD  sooner  have  expected  anything  else 
than  to  be  awakened  by  Marie  Stark  just  on  the 
morning  after  this.  The  last  time  I  had  seen  the 
bookbinder  family,  and  that  has  already  been 
mentioned,  was  when  I  was  climbing  into  the 
cab  after  my  proposal  of  marriage  in  the  Harlans' 
house.  At  that  time  I  was  ashamed  of  knowing 
them. 

I  was  ashamed  of  them  still,  until  my  megalo- 
mania was  drowned  in  secret  distresses,  cares, 
anxieties,  and  the  rising  floods  of  mire  and  crime. 
But  then  I  did  not  think  of  honest  Stark  and  his 
daughter,  because  I  did  not  wish  to  increase  my 
torments  to  no  avail.  After  all,  it  could  not  but 
make  me  feel  like  a  shipwrecked  mariner  who 
should  suddenly  remember  that  he  had  sometime 
or  other  set  foot  on  a  sunlit,  peaceful  green  island. 

In  the  book  of  Ecclesiasticus,  the  fourth  chap- 
ter, there  is  a  verse,  the  twenty-seventh:  "Avoid 
not  thy  neighbor  in  his  fall."  Are  there  many 
in  our  day  that  can  still  measure  this  saying  of 
wisdom  in  its  full  value?     However  that  may  be : 

[194] 


to  recognize  it  is  a  great  deal,  to  live  according 
to  it  is  the  highest  humanity. 

So  much  and  no  less  signifies  that  which  Marie 
and  her  father  have  done  for  me. 

She  told  me  yesterday,  "You  started  up  out 
of  sleep  and  stared  at  me.  In  that  moment  I 
knew  everything." 

You  must  think  of  this  circumstance,  if  you 
would  appreciate  Marie's  resolute  heart  of  gold. 

She  knew  everything,  knew  that  I  was  a  partici- 
pant in  the  theft  and  murder  to  which  the  sister 
of  my  mother  had  fallen  a  victim,  and  the  news 
of  which  was  just  being  disseminated  in  news- 
paper extras.  She  could  not  tell  how  far  I  was 
involved.  And  yet  she  said,  while  the  shouting 
criers  ran  by  in  the  street  below,  as  she  reddened 
and  shyly  caressed  me  a  little,  "Lorenz,  you  have 
had  bitter  experiences,  and  you  have  others  before 
you.  But  save  yourself  for  me.  I  will  wait 
for  you." 

Will  anyone  attempt  to  ascertain  what  these 
words  meant  to  me,  spoken  to  me  on  that  morning 
by  Marie  ^ 

She  went  back  and  forth  between  mother  and 

[195] 


me  and  did  not  leave  us  for  a  moment.  It  is 
thanks  to  her  that  my  mother  first  learned  of 
the  affair  a  week  later,  and  only  from  her  in  a 
softened  form.  She  always  told  her  that  nobody 
doubted  my  complete  innocence.  Marie  herself, 
strange  to  say,  likewise  believed  that  in  her  own 
fashion.  Her  slogan  might  have  been:  "inno- 
cently guilty." 

At  about  ten  o'clock  Stark  came  up.  "Cour- 
age," said  he,  when  we  were  by  ourselves.  To 
me  it  was  a  miracle  to  see  these  two  people  thus 
suddenly  standing  by  my  side  without  a  word  of 
reproach,  although  fully  acquainted  with  the 
facts,  while  I  thought  myself  forsaken  by  God 
and  man. 

I  wept  alternately  with  the  father  and  Marie, 
because  either  she  or  he  had  to  keep  my  mother 
occupied. 

Flight  was  not  even  thought  of. 

Silently  it  was  assumed  by  us  three  that  the 
bitter  cup  of  penitence  and  earthly  punishment 
must  be  drained  to  the  dregs. 

I  should  not  have  waited  for  my  arrest,  but 
should  have  given  myself  up  to  the  law,  had  I 
not  been  deterred  by  a  certain  feeling  of  obliga- 

[196] 


tion  to  my  accomplices.  I  did  not  want  to  appear 
to  them  as  if  I  were  perhaps  trying  to  secure 
better  conditions  for  myself  by  being  a  hypocrite. 
Then  too,  by  giving  myself  up  voluntarily  I 
should  have  brought  on  myself  the  suspicion  of 
playing  the  informer. 

I  wanted  to  spare  others  as  well  as  I  could, 
but  to  be  unsparing  only  of  myself. 

I  was  glad  that  I  had  a  fever,  that  I  coughed 
and  was  shaken  with  the  shivers.  Despite  such 
phenomena  I  had  the  feeling  that  the  crisis  of  my 
grave  sickness  was  now  past,  and  that  I  was  on 
the  road  to  recovery. 

I  could  not  escape  a  prison  sentence.  Yet  I 
had  spent  the  entire  night  in  my  mother's  apart- 
ment, which  could  be  proven  absolutely,  and  the 
guilt  of  direct  participation  in  the  murder  did 
not  enter  into  my  case. 

On  this  morning  and  in  the  company  of  the 
Starks  I  felt  as  if  I  had  taken  a  very  long,  danger- 
ous journey  and  had  only  just  got  back  to  my 
four  walls. 

I  awaited  my  imprisonment  with  impatience. 
I  saw  in  everything  that  was  to  come  the  great 
bath  of  purification,  so  to  speak,  in  which  I  could 

[197] 


cleanse  myself  of  the  dust,  of  the  poisonous  sub- 
stances I  had  breathed  in  on  my  journey,  and 
which  would  heal  my  wounds  and  restore  my 
vanished  powers. 


[198] 


LXIV 

Such  was  the  result,  but  I  had  thought  the 
coming  cure  not  nearly  so  hard,  the  healing 
process  much  less  wearisome. 

Strange  to  say,  I  was  all  at  once  restored  to  my 
former  sober  discernment.  My  supposition  was 
that  it  would  hardly  be  a  matter  of  hours  until 
my  arrest.  For  I  was  thinking  of  my  aunt's 
friend  the  police  commissioner,  who  had  informed 
my  aunt  of  my  doings.  In  order  to  conceal  from 
my  mother  if  possible  the  procedure  of  the  arrest, 
Stark  was  posted  as  sentry  at  the  little  window 
in  the  front  room  that  looked  out  on  the  street, 
so  as  to  notify  me  at  once  of  any  suspicious  oc- 
currences. 

And  after  some  time  he  actually  came  back 
into  the  room  with  the  announcement  that  a  closed 
cab  had  stopped,  four  or  five  doors  up,  and  that 
three  gentlemen  in  plain  clothes  had  got  out  of  it. 
So  the  expected  and  yet  so  terrible  moment  was 
approaching. 

I  had  already  been  walking  restlessly  up  and 
down  for  a  long  time,  with  my  hat  in  my  hand 
and  my  overcoat  over  my  arm.     Now  I  suddenly 

[199] 


found  myself  embracing  alternately  Marie  and 
the  old  bookbinder,  and  I  could  not  have  taken 
leave  differently  from  my  real  wife  and  my  real 
father.  Here  was  my  wife  and  this  was  my  fa- 
ther. No  doubt  of  it,  this  hour  of  direst  need 
had  welded  us  together  for  ever. 

The  gentlemen  stepped  up  to  me  down-stairs 
in  the  narrow  entrance,  to  which  point  I  had  gone 
to  meet  them.  One  of  them  was  the  friend  of 
my  aunt,  who  was  commissioned  to  identify  me. 
It  was  hardly  necessary.  I  gave  myself  up  with 
the  words:  "Here  I  am,  gentlemen,"  and  went 
to  the  cab  hastily  and  inconspicuously. 

I  longed  for  my  solitary  cell. 

"Are  you  sick*?"  asked  one  of  the  gentlemen. 

I  said,  "I  don't  know,"  and  strange  to  say,  "I 
think  not." 

"I  hope  you  will  not  be  misguided  enough  to 
make  a  useless  attempt  to  escape,"  said  the  gentle- 
man who  sat  beside  me. 

Whereupon  I  replied,  "You  forget  that  I 
limp." 

"Yes,  his  one  leg  is  too  short,"  said  the  friend 
of  my  aunt  in  confirmation. 
[200] 


We  drove  past  the  house  of  Melitta  and  her 
mother.  The  windows  were  open,  and  the  baron- 
ess was  watering  the  little  orangery  at  the  window 
with  a  green  watering-pot. 

Goodbye,  goodbye,  I  thought,  and  my  throat 
contracted,  and  my  body  was  all  one  grievous 
bitterness.  The  cab  rumbled  into  the  Ring,  and 
as  I  looked  up  I  saw  the  whipping-post.  Some- 
thing like  a  rosy,  ghostly  vapor  was  circling 
about  it.  Was  it  the  shade  of  a  departed  spirit'? 
Thereupon,  as  in  a  vision,  the  stone  pillory  re- 
vealed itself  to  me  in  its  true  frightfulness.  I 
felt  myself  chained  to  the  rings  and  whipped  till 
I  bled  in  the  presence  of  the  whole  city,  while 
in  the  Harlan  house  opposite  the  householder,  the 
family,  and  all  the  servants  stood  at  the  windows. 
And  it  seemed  to  me,  apart  from  my  own  suffer- 
ing, that  all  this  was  not  so  bad,  but  that  the 
worst  was  a  horrible  and  cruel  face  which  was 
leering  at  me,  and  which  a  voice  at  my  ear  named 
to  me,  while  I  felt  my  heart  turning  to  stone,  as 
the  true  countenance  of  mankind. 

When  I  looked  up  again,  for  mostly  I  kept  my 
eyes  fastened  on  our  eight  knees  so  close  together, 
[201] 


I  recognized  a  former  fellow-clerk  and  desk-mate 
from  the  municipal  office,  who  was  going  to  the 
city  hall  to  work.  He  had  been  my  neighbor 
there  for  many  years;  he  was  a  cheerful,  con- 
tented soul,  and  he  showed  that  now  as  he  saluted 
a  colleague  with  the  gesticulations  of  John,  the 
Merry  Soap-Boiler,^  before  disappearing  with 
him  in  the  porch  of  the  city  hall. 

Why  am  I  not  going  up  to  the  city  hall  any 
more,  I  wonder,  contented  and  happy  with  these 
people?  I  thought.  And  wasn't  it  glorious  when 
it  so  happened  that  we  could  go  down  into  the 
huge  basement  vaults  of  the  city  hall  for  our 
lunch  hour,  and  eat  our  Wieners  and  drink  our 
beer  there? 

Why,  there  was  a  familiar  driveway  and  built 
around  it  was,  sure  enough!  the  old  house  of 
Emmo  Harlan  that  everybody  knew.  After  all, 
I  clung  for  a  long  time,  the  thought  came  to  me, 
to  the  idea  that  the  hardware-merchant  would 
surely  have  to  give  me  some  answer  to  my  pro- 
posal. I  saw  in  my  mind's  eye  how  I  had  run 
after  the  carriage  of  little  Veronica  and  been  led 

^  Translator's  note,     A  reference  to  a  well-known  poem  en- 
entitled  "Johann,  der  Seifensieder,"  by  Freidrich  von  Hagedorn. 

[202] 


out  into  the  street  by  the  domestics,  and  how  for 
the  second  time,  befuddled  by  a  sort  of  trium- 
phant frenzy,  my  breast  puffed  up  with  the  idiotic 
presumption,  I  had  stepped  out  of  the  driveway 
and  into  the  Ring.  How  did  I  come  to  do  all 
this'?  And  what  a  variety  of  previous  occur- 
rences accounted  for  my  coming  to  drive  with 
these  gentlemen  in  a  cab. 

Suddenly  I  drew  out  my  handkerchief,  and 
before  the  police  ofBcers  could  prevent  it,  while 
my  whole  breast  seemed  to  fill  with  hot  tears, 
I  waved  it  out  of  the  window  toward  the  flashing 
window-panes  of  the  Harlan  house.  Of  course 
the  officers,  who  immediately  drew  back  my  arm, 
thought  that  I  had  done  this  to  give  my  accom- 
plices the  "office,"  that  is  a  sign. 

For  a  time  I  was  absent-minded  and  thought 
myself  on  a  journey.  Around  me  was  a  wholly 
unfamiliar  city. 

When  I  came  to,  the  enveloping  world  had 
approached  me  in  an  oppressive  manner.  I  per- 
ceived familiar  things,  of  which  I  thought  I  had 
been  dreaming  the  night  before.  I  was  to  be 
taken  to  the  so-called  Inquisitory,  as  I  thought  I 
must  gather  from  the  remarks  of  my  escorts.  But 
[203] 


this  could  not  possibly  be  the  Inquisitory.  I 
should  have  sooner  expected  anything  else  than 
that  they  would  bring  me  to  this  house,  that  I 
should  have  to  climb  those  stairs  again,  instead 
of  going  to  the  peace  and  protection  of  my  prison 
cell.  Of  course  it  lay  with  me  whether  I  would 
make  it  a  cell  for  prayer,  for  atonement,  for 
saintly  living. 

But  this  was  really  too  much.  I  stopped  short 
in  the  middle  of  the  staircase  and  asked  if  they 
had  not  made  a  mistake.  The  answer  was: 
"Not  at  all."  A  hundred  times  I  had  climbed 
this  narrow,  creaking  wooden  staircase,  without 
noticing  anything  special  about  it,  for  it  was  the 
stairway  to  Aunt  Schwab's  apartment.  But  now 
invisible  fists,  countless  and  terrible,  struck  out 
at  me  from  the  walls,  from  the  coming  darkness 
in  front  of  me,  and  I  did  think  of  running  away, 
come  what  might. 

My  companions  must  have  noticed  that,  for 
they  grasped  me  more  tightly,  and  I  stumbled, 
fairly  hurled  forward,  into  the  vestibule  of  my 
aunt's  flat. 

The  apartment  consisted  of  the  small  unlighted 
vestibule,  a  cramped  kitchen  with  a  pantry,  the 
[204] 


room  in  which  my  aunt  slept,  the  parlor  with  the 
red  plush  sofa,  and  the  little  office,  which  con- 
tained the  many  pigeon-holed  cabinets  for  the  de- 
posited objects,  the  ledger,  the  correspondence, 
and  the  like.  The  little  steel  safe  was  not  here, 
but  was  set  up  in  the  parlor  beside  the  sofa,  so 
that  it  should  not  meet  the  eyes  of  the  many  kinds 
of  people  who  went  in  and  out  of  the  office. 

For  some  seconds,  while  we  were  compelled  to 
wait  in  the  vestibule,  I  had  the  feeling  of  standing 
before  an  experience  that  would  shroud  my  soul 
in  eternal  night,  and  then  again  I  was  as  far  re- 
moved from  all  that  was  going  on  around  me  as 
if  I  were  a  mere  spectator  looking  on  at  a  pre- 
arranged spectacle. 

The  morning  sun  shone  into  the  office,  the  door 
of  which  was  open.  Also  the  doors  to  the  parlor 
and  the  kitchen  stood  open.  They  had  probably 
left  everything  as  nearly  as  possible  unchanged 
from  the  state  in  which  they  had  found  it  after 
the  night  of  the  murder. 

The  canary  from  the  Harz,  hanging  in  the 
office,  was  singing  loudly  and  incessantly  with  all 
his  might.  His  thoughtless  and  carefree  jubila- 
tion formed  the  strangest  contrast  to  that  which 
[205] 


had   transpired  and  was  still  transpiring  here. 

At  the  office-door  something  violent  must  have 
taken  place.  A  clothes-tree  which  stood  near  it, 
with  my  aunt's  raincoat  and  umbrella  and,  as  I 
recognized,  with  Vigottschinsky's  hat  and  over- 
coat, was  overturned. 

On  the  table  in  the  parlor  the  remnants  of  yes- 
terday's supper  had  not  yet  been  cleared  away. 
There  were  bread,  butter,  cold  meat,  radishes, 
Swiss  cheese,  and  egg-shells,  as  well  as  a  half- 
empty  and  a  wholly  empty  wine-bottle.  On  a 
platter  lay  the  bones  and  head  of  a  smoked 
flounder,  a  dish  which  was  distasteful  to  my 
aunt,  but  which  she  mostly  set  before  Vigottschin- 
sky  because  he  liked  it. 

I  shuddered  slightly  as  I  saw  these  victuals. 
Hard  to  say  for  what  reason.  Perhaps  I  felt  as 
if  a  ghost-supper  had  taken  place  here. 

But  how,  why  did  just  this  simple  and  most 
actual  bread,  this  yellow  butter,  etc.,  seem  to  me 
quite  especially  ghastly"?  Whereas  the  murmur 
of  voices  behind  the  closed  door  of  the  bedroom 
hardly  affected  me.  To  be  sure:  the  spectral 
world  about  me  increased.  An  instinct  told  me 
that  the  increase  of  spectral  elements  in  the  field 
[206] 


of  my  perceptions  was  actually  an  advantage  to 
me.  I  only  needed  to  help  the  process  on  a  little, 
in  order  to  take  from  the  horrible,  brutal  reality 
almost  everything  real  and  actual,  which  might 
otherwise  have  destroyed  my  mind. 

Incessantly  I  felt  a  nausea  which  increased 
several  times  to  a  convulsive  retching.  Because 
many  a  wrathful  thought  came  to  me,  and  I  even 
gritted  my  teeth,  I  seemed  all  the  more  to  my 
escorts  as  a  dangerous  miscreant.  But  I  was 
merely  seized  with  unspeakable  bitterness  in  the 
face  of  that  incomprehensible  power  which  had 
held  up  to  me  the  prototype  of  beauty,  so  to  speak, 
in  order  to  lure  me  with  it,  by  craftily  shrouded 
paths,  into  a  stinking  cess-pool. 

But  grinding  of  teeth  and  the  lifting  of 
clenched  fists  is  of  no  avail.  Man  has  an  over- 
weening conception  of  himself.  He  is  reared  in 
a  lie  and  is  naturally  surprised  when  it  is  proven 
to  him,  with  a  brutal  kick  of  fate,  how  little  truth 
there  is  in  his  supposed  equality  with  the  gods. 

But  perhaps  it  was  just  as  well  that  a  grim 

defiance  had  come  upon  me  at  the  very  moment 

that  the  door  of  the  bedroom  opened,  where  they 

were  going  to  confront  me  with  the  murdered 

[207] 


woman,  as  of  course  I  had  long  since  realized. 
Without  this  defiance  I  might  not  have  been  able 
to  bear  up. 

The  officers  and  I  were  about  to  move  forward, 
when  they  motioned  us  back  and  closed  the  door 
again. 

A  fit  of  nervous  laughter  seized  me,  which  was 
naturally  chalked  up  against  me  as  callousness, 
as  brutality.  But  a  recollection  from  the  days 
of  my  childhood  had  suddenly  rushed  into  my 
mind,  when  we  three,  my  sister,  my  brother,  and  I, 
had  likewise  waited  in  the  utmost  expectancy  for 
the  opening  of  a  door.  Back  of  it  the  famil- 
iar Christmas  table  had  been  piled  with  gifts, 
and  the  candles  were  just  being  lighted  on  the 
tree. 

And  I  sobbed  with  convulsive  laughter,  because 
I  could  not  help  thinking  how  similar  after  all 
were  the  proceedings  of  this  day,  though  to  be 
sure  a  very  different  ceremony  was  to  follow. 

Meanwhile  the  door  was  actually  opened  wide. 
I  collected  my  thoughts  for  a  moment,  and  as  we 
advanced  I  thought,  as  if  mechanically,  of  noth- 
ing else  but  the  words  of  my  Marie:  "Lorenz, 
[208] 


you  have  had  bitter  experiences,  and  you  have 
others  before  you.  But  save  yourself  for  me.  I 
will  wait  for  you." 

No,  I  face  about  here.  I  will  let  the  unreal 
shadow  of  my  personality,  my  shadowy  double 
enter  without  me  across  the  threshold  of  the  dis- 
gusting and  in  every  respect  defiled  alcove  where 
my  aunt  lay  in  her  nightgown,  a  hideously  de- 
graded corpse. 

Oh,  roses,  roses  I  One  must  inhale  the  odor  of 
roses,  of  thousands  and  thousands  of  incense-bear- 
ing roses  I  Or  the  scent  of  the  mountain  stream 
that  rushes  along  over  yonder,  cold  and  clear. 
The  perfume  of  the  pines  I  Steeling  draught  of 
the  pure,  heavenly  mountain  air,  permeate  me, 
be  blessed  to  me  as  my  daily  bath  I 

Herewith  let  the  resolve  be  taken  to  deliver  up 
to  my  good  Marie,  to-day  or  tomorrow,  even  the 
picture  of  Veronica. 

Strange  how  I  suddenly  hit  upon  that  idea. 

What  connection  between  the  shudder  that  has 
come  over  me  this  very  day  at  the  mere  recollec- 
tion of  the  murder-chamber,  at  merely  standing 
before  its  imaginary  threshold,  and  this  little 
[209] 


square  of  cardboard,  from  which  Veronica's  lovely- 
little  child-face  smiles  up  at  me? 

What  connection  between  this  prototype  of 
beauty,  this  heavenly  and  wonder-working  image, 
and  the  stinking  hell-hole  whose  very  thought 
poisons  the  air  of  my  clean  house  *? 

Well,  no  other  than  that  between  the  beginning 
and  end  of  a  road, 

I  have  reflected  on  the  connection  between  this 
starting-point  and  this  terminus  in  my  cell,  where 
I  was  under  lock  and  key  and  had  plenty  of  time 
for  it,  and  what  I  have  discovered  in  this  way  is 
to  be  sure  only  a  small  part,  as  I  have  shown. 

Namely  this:  the  sight  of  the  utmost  purity 
led  me  into  the  deepest  wickedness,  and  the  sight 
of  the  basest  wickedness  led  me  to  purity,  and 
even  in  another  and  better  sense. 

Did  those  magistrates  dream,  as  they  either 
furtively  watched  me  in  the  presence  of  the  dead 
woman,  or  stared  at  me,  or  tried  to  catch  me  nap- 
ping with  their  questions,  or  snapped  at  me,  that 
it  was  just  in  that  den  of  murder  and  pestilence, 
just  under  that  cross-examination,  that  there  came 
to  me  with  the  power  of  a  lightning  flash  the  11- 
[210] 


lumination  that  has  lifted  for  me  out  of  the  dark- 
ness the  world  in  which  I  am  now  living,  and  in 
which  I  shall  live  out  my  life  till  the  day  of  my 
death? 


[211] 


LXV 

I  THOUGHT  of  Striking  out  the  foregoing  chap- 
ter. But  I  will  let  it  stand,  because  it  bears  wit- 
ness to  a  certain  confusion  into  which  I  can  be 
brought  even,  to  this  day,  by  the  recollection  of 
my  confrontation  with  the  dead  body  and  with 
Vigottschinsky  at  the  side  of  it. 

But  I  shall  attempt  to  clear  up  the  main  point 
of  the  chapter,  and  thereby  perhaps  the  others  too, 
to  a  certain  extent. 

All  at  once,  you  see,  the  murder-chamber  re- 
vealed to  me  the  entire  hopeless  wretchedness  to 
which  all  life  is  condemned.  This  revelation  oc- 
curred, as  I  say,  with  the  power  of  a  lightning- 
flash,  in  a  blinding,  almost  deadly  light,  as  it 
seemed  to  me  at  the  moment.  There  lay  the 
dead  woman,  in  whom  the  rigor  mortis  had  al- 
ready set  in,  almost  naked  and,  it  may  be  said, 
exposed  to  the  eyes  of  all  in  a  disgraceful  position. 
This  throttled  female,  with  her  ugly  shape  and 
her  throat  all  black  and  blue,  had  not  one  feature 
that  reminded  me  of  Aunt  Schwab.  This  mass 
of  moulded  flesh  was  so  alien  to  me  that  at  the 
sight  of  it  I  felt  nothing  but  an  animal  shudder. 
[212] 


It  was  for  this,  then,  that  my  aunt  had  piled  up 
penny  on  penny,  mark  on  mark,  had  figured  and 
done  usury,  systematically  exploited  the  misery  of 
others,  to  come  to  this  end,  which  of  course  she 
could  not  have  ultimately  escaped,  even  if  the 
unchastity  of  her  old  carcass  had  not  laid  her  in 
the  arms  of  her  murderer. 

And  was  she  really  so  very  much  less  laden  with 
guilt  than  he*?  Mother  told  of  two  cases  where 
clients  of  my  aunt  had  each  in  his  own  way  com- 
mitted suicide,  when  their  notes  were  presented 
for  payment. 

Well,  and  these  judges,  these  police  officers, 
these  prosecutors,  could  one  pronounce  them  guilt- 
less and  sinless  men?  Have  not  almost  all 
human  beings  a  secret  sin  to  conceal,  a  secret  mis- 
demeanor, if  not  many  and  positively  criminal 
offences'?  And  think  of  all  that  is  done  even  by 
the  courts,  partly  out  of  general  human  short- 
comings, partly  out  of  negligence  or  carelessness, 
whereby  the  happiness  or  unhappiness,  the  life  or 
death,  of  innocent  persons  is  decided  I 

So  I  went  out  of  this  room  in  deep  penitence,  to 
be  sure,  but  on  the  other  hand  with  a  strangely 
exalted  soul.     It  was  as  if  I  were  lifted  out  of 

[213] 


myself.  It  was  clear  to  me  that  provided  I  made 
good  use  of  the  insight  I  had  gained,  I  could  lose 
little,  but  could  take  to  myself  the  true  profits  of 
life:  the  power  of  rising  above  one's  existence, 
a  power  which  is  the  equivalent  of  the  power  to 
renounce. 

And  now  perhaps  you  will  understand  my 
resolve  to  part  with  the  little  photograph  of 
Veronica  Harlan. 


[214] 


LXVI 

Now  I  have  crossed  the  threshold  of  the 
murder-chamber  after  all,  but  only  in  imagina- 
tion, and  only  passing  over  it  back  and  forth  in 
such  a  way  that  it  could  not  but  be  clear  how  I 
went  in  and  came  out  as  two  entirely  different 
persons.  After  I  had  stood  under  the  lightning- 
flash  of  my  illumination,  I  saw  the  crude  decep- 
tions to  which  I  had  fallen  a  prey,  about  like  one 
who  thinks  he  is  stepping  on  a  green  flowery 
mead  and  who  sets  his  foot  on  a  deep  pit  of 
liquid  manure,  completely  overgrown  with  green 
duck-weed,  in  which  he  promptly  sinks  down  over 
his  head. 

"When  I  sat  in  my  prison  cell,  behind  bolts  and 
walls  and  close-set  iron  bars,  robbed  by  men  of 
my  freedom,  I  had  gained  an  inward  freedom,  I 
had  cast  off  the  bonds  and  fetters  of  grave  error. 
I  had  risen  up  again  out  of  the  manure-pit  and 
had  shaken  the  filth  from  me.  I  think  myself 
safe  from  a  fresh  immersion  of  that  kind. 

There  followed  the  trial,  there  followed  hear- 
ing after  hearing.  The  investigations  brought 
to  light  things  that  were  so  remote  from  the  true 

[215] 


course  of  my  experience  that  they  are  without 
significance  for  it.  And  since  I  had  learned  once 
for  all  how  to  separate  appearance  from  reality, 
I  kept  on  applying  my  learning,  and  the  central 
core  of  my  being  was  no  longer  touched  by  the  ex- 
ternal procedure  of  the  trial. 

At  times  during  the  sessions  of  the  jury  I  felt 
as  if  my  place  in  the  dock  were  occupied  only  by  a 
lay  figure,  on  which  judges  and  prosecutor  were 
venting  their  rage,  while  i  myself  had  stayed  in 
my  cell. 


[216] 


LXVII 

A  CERTAIN  ebb  in  my  communicative  craving 
and  in  my  material  is  setting  in.  So  probably 
most  of  that  which  concerns  the  crisis  in  my  life 
has  gradually  been  told.  And  yet  I  feel  as  if 
something  important  had  been  left  unsaid. 

I  shall  go  over  to  the  school-house  today  to  see 
Dr.  Levine — he  has  repeatedly  asked  about  my 
literary  undertaking — and  shall  agree  with  him 
upon  a  day  when  I  can  read  to  him  what  I  have 
written  so  far. 

The  peculiar  thing  about  my  case  is  that  I  am 
in  accord  with  it,  I  mean  my  case.  For  this 
reason  my  memoir  has  overstepped  the  bounds  of 
what  might  have  been  a  defence  before  worldly 
judges.  On  the  contrary,  the  judges  that  I  take 
into  consideration  as  readers  are  such  as  have  out- 
grown the  judge's  calling  on  their  own  part. 
Such  a  man  is  Dr.  Levine,  of  whom  I  have  already 
spoken  before.  He  is  the  quondam  state's  attor- 
ney, who  is  the  village  schoolmaster  here,  and  who 
has  no  greater  desire  than  to  spend  the  rest  of  his 
days  under  the  elders,  ashes,  and  birches  of  our 
simple  hamlet,  and  to  end  the  dream  of  life  some 

[2»7] 


day  in  the  densely  overgrown  churchyard  of  the 
place.  In  this  as  in  many  other  points  he  and  I 
are  of  one  mind. 

When  I  said  I  was  in  accord  with  my  case,  I 
meant  that  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  have  done 
time  in  prison,  and  who  cannot  get  over  griev- 
ing about  it.  Their  ambition  seems  to  have  been 
made  ten  times  more  active,  like  the  nerve  of 
a  hollow  tooth,  by  the  ineffaceable  stain  that  ad- 
heres to  them  in  the  eyes  of  the  community,  and  to 
cause  them  a  thousand  times  more  pain.  They 
cannot  get  over  saying,  "Oh,  if  I  only  hadn't  .  .  . 
oh,  if  I  only  weren't  .  .  .  oh,  if  I  could  only 
undo  what  has  been  done.  .  .  ."  Their  exist- 
ence is  a  chain  of  self-reproaches  and  repent- 
ances. They  are  almost  maddened  by  the  at- 
tempt to  turn  back  the  hands  of  the  clock  of  life 
to  the  time  that  preceded  the  deed.  How  differ- 
ently I  should  act  to-day,  they  think. 

"Tell  me,"  I  asked  Dr.  Levine,  "why  did  you 
give  up  your  legal  career*?" 

"Law  and  rights  descend  from  generation  to 
generation  like  an  eternal  malady,"  said  Dr. 
Levine.  And  he  added,  "Judge  not,  that  ye  be 
not  judged." 

[218] 


I  have  also  jotted  down  a  passage  from  the 
patristic  writer  TertuUian  which  he  translated 
for  me.  It  shows  how  the  early  Christians 
thought  of  holders  of  power  and  wielders  of 
power,  of  judges  and  courts,  and  reads  thus: 
"Recently  a  dispute  arose  whether  a  servant  of 
God  might  take  over  the  administration  of  any 
post  of  honor  or  any  office  of  authority.  If  we 
admit  that  anyone  can  do  this  without  taking  an 
oath,  can  act  as  holder  of  a  post  of  honor  without 
pronouncing  judgment  on  the  life  and  death  or 
the  civic  honor  of  a  human  being,  can  promulgate 
a  penal  law  without  condemning  someone  to  be 
chained,  imprisoned  or  tortured — then  even  a 
servant  of  God  may  accept  such  an  office." 

No,  I  am  not  an  "Oh-if -I- weren't"  or  "Oh-if-I 
hadn't."  I  am  a  believer  in  being,  in  living. 
Life  is  much  too  vast  to  be  stowed  away  without 
residue  in  the  humdrum  retail  store  and  back 
room,  and  I  already  know  much  too  much  about 
it  not  to  feel  firm  and  free  and  justified  in  it. 
Here  is  the  sun,  here  is  the  moon,  here  are  the 
stars,  here  is  the  Milky  Way.  I  breathe  air,  fra- 
grance, warmth,  ice,  fog,  tempest.  I  enjoy  the 
light,  I  enjoy  the  night-time.  If  they  should 
[219] 


exclude  me  from  intercourse  with  the  petty  hu- 
man fossils,  well,  what  greater  favor  could  be 
done  me"?  But  if  they  should  promptly  leave  me 
entirely  alone — well,  after  all,  what  human  being 
is  not  entirely  alone?  And  is  my  consciousness 
not  unbounded'?  And  should  I  esteem  myself 
lower  than  humanity,  lower  than  any  living  hu- 
man being,  when  I  am  fervently  pressing  close  to 
the  Godhead  every  day  and  every  night? 

I  have  looked  deeply  into  my  case  from  every 
side,  as  I  say,  in  the  long  nights  and  days  of  my 
solitary  confinement,  and  finally  and  ultimately 
found  myself  in  accord  with  it.  The  trivial, 
narrow-breasted,  narrow-minded  municipal  clerk 
that  I  was  is  no  more.  My  breast  is  arched,  my 
spirit  is  independent  and  broad,  even  my  walk 
has  improved. 

I  will  not  gloss  over  ugliness,  and  yet  one 
might  use  a  rather  bold  figure  and  speak  of  a 
pearl  that  I  had  found  at  the  bottom  of  the 
manure-pit  and  brought  up  with  me.  And  with- 
out this  experience-chain  of  disappointment  and 
suffering,  could  I  have  known  an  hour  like  the 
one  when  I  was  released  and  stepped  out  of  the 
door  of  the  Breslau  Inquisitory  under  the  open 
[220] 


sky,  whereupon  Marie  was  immediately  clasped 
in  my  arms? — 

No,  I  will  not  go  over  to  see  Dr.  Levine.  1 
shall  not  reveal  the  contents  of  these  pages  even 
to  him.  In  the  first  place,  there  would  be  a  cer- 
tain shamelessness  in  it,  the  display  of  which  I 
could  perhaps  not  forgive  myself  for  a  long  time. 
It  would  probably  make  me  carry  a  discontent 
around  with  me  for  years  to  come.  Who  can  tell 
whether  that  discontent  might  not  assume  propor- 
tions that  would  drive  me  away  from  here  into  a 
new  and  alien  spot,  simply  because  my  secret,  my 
most  sacred  and  deepest  secret,  was  in  the  hands 
of  another?  And  of  course  I  should  have  been 
exposing  to  public  gaze  the  tenderest  emotions  of 
my  father-in-law  and  my  wife  without  their  con- 
sent. "Why  don't  you  write,"  my  good  wife  did 
say  to  be  sure,  "perhaps  it  may  turn  out  to  be  a 
book,  you  know."  Well,  it  is  a  book  by  now, 
but  my  good  Marie  and  Papa  Stark  might  be 
startled  after  all,  if  they  should  see  how  far  I 
have  gone  in  the  revelation  of  myself  and  of  us 
all. 

And  yet  might  I  not  show  it  to  them,  either? 

Well,  perhaps  the  time  for  that  may  still  come, 
[221] 


some  winter  day,  some  winter  evening.     For  the 
time  being  I  will  lock  the  pages  up. 

It  still  remains  to  be  considered,  however, 
whether  I  should  cause  Marie's  heart  fresh  pain 
by  the  revelations  about  Veronica. 

I  can  easily  put  off  Dr.  Levine  by  saying  that  I 
had  suddenly  come  to  realize  that  the  thing 
could  not  be  done  in  this  form,  and  that  I  must 
begin  the  entire  work  all  over  again. 

My  mother  died  before  I  saw  the  light  of 
freedom  again.  I  hope  not  of  a  broken  heart, 
as  they  say.  Besides  Stark  and  Marie,  my 
brother  Hugo  took  care  of  her  while  I  was  in 
prison,  he  having  been  appointed  as  drawing- 
teacher  in  a  city  high-school  by  a  strange  agency, 
of  which  I  shall  speak.  My  mother  never  be- 
lieved in  my  guilt,  Marie  and  Stark  say,  and 
never  lost  her  faith  in  my  good  character  or  in 
me. 

Melitta  only  came  to  see  me  in  prison  a  single 
time,  but  smuggled  Veronica's  picture  in  to  me 
in  a  New  Testament.  I  was  deeply  touched  by 
this  trait  in  her  character. 

Today  I  do  not  know  nor  care  to  know  where 
she  is. 

[222] 


My  brother  Hugo  received  his  position,  as  I 
say,  through  a  strange  agency. 

What  I  could  not  achieve  with  the  very  most 
ardent  desire  of  passion,  nor  by  distracting  my- 
self to  the  point  of  madness,  namely  to  so  much 
as  speak  with  Veronica  Harlan,  that  privilege 
fell  into  my  brother's  lap  in  the  most  natural  way 
in  the  world. 

Fortunately  he  had  spent  the  period  of  my 
great  crisis  outside  of  Breslau,  in  Munich,  in  fact. 
He  only  returned  to  Breslau  after  the  grass  had 
long  been  growing  over  my  trial.  He  had  the 
best  of  recommendations  from  Munich,  and  so  he 
received  from  the  director  of  the  Breslau  school 
of  art  a  so-called  master-studio. 

Mr.  Harlan  had  applied  to  this  director  and 
requested  him  to  recommend  a  talented  young 
artist,  who  also  would  be  suitable  in  respect  to 
his  morals,  to  undertake  the  instruction  of  his 
daughter  Veronica  in  drawing  and  painting. 

The  choice  had  fallen  on  my  brother. 

It  fell  on  him  and  was  approved  by  Harlan, 
although  the  director  did  not  conceal  the  relation 
in  which  he  stood  to  me  and  my  fate. 

Harlan  took  a  liking  to  my  brother,  and  it  is 
[223] 


due  to  his  influence  as  member  of  the  council  that 
he  was  appointed,  again  in  spite  of  me,  as  teacher 
in  the  employ  of  the  city. 

I  have  no  idea  in  what  manner  my  sister 
Melanie  escaped  the  punitive  hand  of  the  law. 
I  received  a  single  letter  from  her,  sent  from 
Bahia  in  Brazil.  She  said  she  had  married  there. 
The  close  of  the  letter  was :  "If  I  get  along  well, 
I  will  write  again  two  years  from  now.  If  not, 
goodbye  for  ever  I" 


[224] 


HAUPTMANN'S  DRAMAS 

The  authorized  trandaiion  into  English  thus  far  include» 
seven  volumes 


VOLUME  I.    SOCIAL  DRAMAS 

Before  Dawn  The  Beaver  Coat 

The  Weavers  The  Conflagration 

VOLUME  IL    SOCIAL  DRAMAS 

Drayman  Henschel  Rose  Bernd 

The  Rats 

VOLUME  III.    DOMESTIC  DRAMAS 

The  Reconciliation  Colleague  Crampton 

Lonely  Lives  Michael  Kramer 

VOLUME    IV.    SYMBOLIC    AND    LEGENDARY 
DRAMAS 

Hannele        The  Sunken  Bell 
Henry  of  Aue 

VOLUME  V.    SYMBOLIC  AND  LEGENDARY 
DRAMAS 

Schluck  and  Jau  And  Pippa  Dances 

Charlemagne's  Hostage 

VOLUME  VI.    LATER  DRAMAS  IN  PROSE 

The  Maidens   of  the   Mount  Grisclda 

Gabriel  Schilling's  Flight 

VOLUME  VII.    MISCELLANEOUS  DRAMAS 

Commemoration  Masque  Fragments: 

The  Bow  of  Odysseus  I     Helios 

Elga  II     Pastoral 

uniformly  hound,  each  volume,  $2.50 

Published  by  B.  W.  HUEBSCH,  INC.,  New  York  City 


